Chapter 23: The Blazing Ranger

I had to admit that even though Red Flame, this overly bold mutant Elf, had done plenty of foolish things on the battlefield that shamed his own allies, both his superb skill and his arrogant battle cries made him the natural leader among us. He was just like the sharp blade in his hand, plunging deep into the densest clusters of Winston soldiers and slicing them into scattered pieces, smashing the enemy’s counterattacks again and again with his beast-like combat instincts. His almost gorgeous twin-blade technique produced plenty of other people’s blood, and he never stopped shouting wildly:

“Come on, let’s see who can push the greatest Ranger back even one step. This is your honor! Pretty miss, wait for me, your prince charming and dream lover is here!”

Perhaps he didn’t know it himself, but this kind of playful shouting greatly relaxed our tense nerves and wiped away our fear of a large regular army force. His valor left an impression of absolute invincibility in the sailors’ hearts and stirred up their fighting passion even more. Under the leadership of such a brave warrior, the loosely organized sailors burst out with astonishing fighting power . These sailors, who had braved the winds and waves of the world for decades, were naturally rough men who worshipped strength and were easily roused. The mighty power Red Flame displayed completely ignited the wild factor in their blood. The battle-hungry seafarers completely ignored the difference in numbers and attacked with even greater frenzy — of course, this might have had something to do with the fact that not many of them could count properly.

“Brothers, don’t let that old demon Red Flame outshine us!” That was the voice of Boatswain Lint, who could never tell the difference between a “demon” and an “Elf.”

“Winston donkeys, crawl back to the shore! The water is not your turf! Ouch, damn, that stabbed me!” Old sailor Kullen spoke with tremendous heroic spirit — if only his last line hadn’t been so discouraging.

“Think about who we’re rescuing — pirates! Hahaha, merchant ship sailors going to save pirates, how awesome is that? If my wife finds out, she’ll go crazy! Kill…” Someone suddenly blurted this out, drawing a burst of laughter from all the sailors. For a moment, the cries of “Save the pirates! Save the pirates!” rang out across the entire ship.

Things were strange that way. When your life was threatened, you felt afraid, terrified, even hopeless. But when your pride was hurt, even a sheep waiting to be slaughtered could become a lion. This was especially true for women.

“Men, whoever lets those merchant sailors look down on us will be punished by scrubbing the toilet for a year!” the female pirate with the pink headscarf shouted with a flushed, angry face. “Hook, guard the cabin door. If anything happens to the kids, I’ll replace your other hand with a hook too. Anchor, take the helm and rock the ship hard. I want those Winston tin cans to throw up last night’s dinner! The rest of you follow me — let them know who the real master of this ship is!”

The pirates sang their song “Skull Flag Hardmen” and spread out again. This time, they weren’t scattering helplessly after taking attacks, but deliberately splitting into teams to counterattack. Under the female leader’s orderly command, the pirates formed groups of three — two holding short knives to defend, one attacking with a long-handled harpoon. This harpoon had sharp edges on both sides, and one side had a big sharp barb. Any soldier unlucky enough to be “cared for” by it immediately lost the ability to fight. This small formation effectively made up for the pirates’ shortage in numbers. As their loud singing continued, the Winstons, attacked from both sides, kept suffering more casualties. The rogues began to steady themselves.

The scales of victory gradually tipped toward us. Together with the pirates, we sandwiched the Winston soldiers in the middle and completed a small encirclement. Although their numbers were far greater than ours, only a handful could ever face us directly at the same time. Just as Fred had told us: in battle, using tactics wisely according to the features of the terrain could make it possible for the side with fewer numbers to hold off the side with greater numbers. I had always felt that such profound military theory had no practical use for small soldiers like us. I never expected to see a powerful example with my own eyes so soon — and that example was closely tied to my own life.

“Drop your weapons! Surrender and you won’t be killed!” Suddenly, I remembered Fred saying that pushing the enemy into a dead end in battle was dangerous. When you had the advantage, you should leave the enemy a way out, to avoid an unexpectedly crazy counterattack. So I shouted loudly.

My shout stirred up Red Flame’s peaceful nature. He led the merchant sailors in shouting the surrender call together. The call received good results. A couple of Winstons in desperate straits started throwing down their weapons. Once someone took the lead, the mood to surrender gradually spread. Especially when they were at a disadvantage and their reinforcements couldn’t arrive in time, more and more people put down their weapons.

Under our friendly “suggestion,” they took off their heavy armor, grabbed the wooden boards we “kindly gifted” them, and jumped into the water. I had no better choice. On one hand, we didn’t have enough time or energy to deal with prisoners who outnumbered us. On the other hand, the shore wasn’t too far away and the current wasn’t strong, which was more than enough to let these soldiers holding floating boards reach land safely. Of course, we didn’t need to worry about the fact that those boards had been torn off someone else’s ship.

But on the pirates’ side, there was no intention of stopping the killing. A desperate soldier surrendered to the female leader, only to have a sword pierce his heart. This act stirred up the bloodthirsty nature of the pirates. Many surrendered soldiers were killed on the spot.

“Red Flame, stop them!” I quickly called out to Red Flame ahead of me. In the middle area, many soldiers who had already put down their weapons were picking up their swords again. If they firmly fought us to the death, we might not necessarily lose, but we would definitely suffer greater losses.

“Clang!” Red Flame blocked the female leader’s thrusting sword and kicked a kneeling surrendered soldier behind him. The soldier who escaped from under the sword cooperatively rolled to the ship’s edge and jumped into the water to flee. Whether or not he could swim, nobody could tell.

“You’re actually saving the enemy?” The female leader was stunned for a moment, then thrust her sword at Red Flame’s chest.

“Don’t be angry. Women who kill get old easily.” Red Flame dodged with a playful grin.

“They killed my people!” Her thrusting sword came at him like a rainstorm, but couldn’t even hit Red Flame’s shadow.

“They’ve already surrendered.” Red Flame, while blocking the butcher blades that other pirates swung at the surrendered soldiers, kept shouting, “You who surrendered, run that way. Don’t come here to die.”

“If they escape, I’ll make you pay with your lives!” the female leader shouted angrily.

“We’re your lifesavers.”

“Saving my enemies makes you my enemy.”

“We’ve already won.”

“I don’t care!”

“Don’t let your people sacrifice themselves for nothing anymore.”

“I don’t care!”

“Don’t let the kids see how cruel you look.”

“I don’t care!”

“Even robbers have the honor of robbers. You’re not murderers.”

“I don’t care!”

“Damn it, I hate unreasonable women the most. You’re just like my big sister. You bastard, how dare you!” Red Flame suddenly burst into motion, stopped dodging, and slashed his blade at the female leader. The strike came too fast. Seeing that she could no longer dodge, she could only close her eyes and thrust her sword out, ready to die together with Red Flame.

“Ah…” A scream of agony. Blood flowed along the blade into the female leader’s collar. She was completely unharmed, but when she turned around, she saw a Winston officer with a blade in his neck, blood spurting out. He was already dead. In his hand was a sharp dagger, only one knuckle’s distance from the female leader’s back.

The thrusting sword pierced through Red Flame’s right shoulder, and the tip came out from his back.

The female leader was stunned by the sudden turn of events. Her face turned pale. Trembling, she let go of her sword, leaving it stuck in Red Flame’s shoulder, at a loss for what to do.

“If you keep killing surrendered soldiers, you’ll run into danger like this again.” Red Flame, his face drained of color, pulled back his blade and said with great effort, “I can only save you once.”

“No killing surrenders! No killing surrenders! Everyone, hear my order — no killing surrenders!” the female leader gave the order in a panicked, tearful voice. Then she turned back and asked urgently, “Are you okay? How do you feel? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was like this…”

“What an obedient… good girl. I still don’t know… your name.” Red Flame knelt weakly to the ground, murmuring softly.

“My name is Kelsey, Kelsey Ragg. Don’t scare me. I’ll find someone to save you right now. Hook, get over here, quickly, bring the injury medicine. Forget about those prisoners…”

“Kelsey Ragg, that’s a beautiful… name…” Red Flame’s head tilted to one side, and he collapsed into Kelsey’s arms, unconscious.

The battle on the Golden Rose was over.

Red Flame’s wound was serious, but not fatal. He had only lost too much blood, which left him temporarily unconscious. After settling him down, Kelsey quickly freed herself from the regret of having wounded him by mistake and led the pirates back to the warship together with us. We arrived just in time. Fred and the others had run into trouble. To be precise, they had run into “one” big problem.

Just as they were firmly holding all the passages on the ship and waiting for the enemy to collapse on their own, the wall beside the forward cabin door suddenly shattered, and a burly giant of a man wearing heavy golden-yellow armor and holding two short-handled battle axes jumped out. Before this, we had thought our Captain Carlson was already extremely massive. But this man in front of us was a full head taller than Carlson. The two axes in his hands could form a small dining table when put together. He had actually split open a cabin wall that was a full two men thick in one go, which showed how terrifying his arm strength was and how brutally he did things.

“Hahaha, you bunch of petty thieves actually dared to attack the flagship of me, General Kaplan. All of you, accept your deaths!” He casually swung an axe and chopped a sailor along with his sword into two pieces.

“Follow me, boys! Bring death and despair to the enemy. Let them taste the power of me, Kaplan the City Butcher!” The mighty commander waved his great axe and charged out of the cabin, with many Winston soldiers surging out behind him. The soldiers, shouting slogans like “City Butcher” and “Invincible Warrior,” charged at the caught-off-guard sailors, venting all the frustration they had bottled up on the rear deck onto Fred and the others.

The person we had attacked turned out to be none other than Kaplan, the commander of the Winston Army’s Eastern Route Army, Winston’s number one valiant general, hailed as the bravest of the brave, known as the City Butcher. Even Fred was stunned speechless for quite a while by this shocking fact.