"F-Father, please don't do this. Let us escape together." A child held the legs of her father in hopes of changing his mind. Tears streamed out of her eyes as her frail hands that wrapped around the legs of her father shivered in response to the sounds that echoed in her surroundings.
"David Washer! Roll out of your turtle shell and meet your maker." A thundering voice reverberated in their surroundings, rattling the wooden beams that supported the mast of the ship.
"Father, father, let us run away. You will die if you go out." The voice of the little girl became hoarse and frightened by the domineering attitude of the attacker.
"My child," The man the little girl addressed as her father crouched down until his line of sight was on the same level as her, "You know we don't have a choice in the matter. Ever since your father acted rashly on that day, this was only a matter of time."
The man sported a vicious scar that ran across his face, beginning from the bottom of his left eye all the way till his stomach. He had a head that was bald on the top with a thick curly chestnut brown hair growing on the sides. On his earlobes were two box-shaped earrings while he wore a gauntlet on his right, all made from copper.
The man only had a single right arm which he used to caress the cheeks of his daughter and wipe her tears. In the place of his left arm was a stump that was rotting, leaking out a pungent odour into the surroundings while a thick yellow puss occasionally spurted out.
"Stephen, how goes our preparations?" The man turned to his right and witnessed a man hugging a boy who appeared to be the same age as his daughter.
"We are ready to engage with them anytime. I have already cast my hallucinogen in the surrounding 10 Sitra and created 2 temporary escape routes." The man addressed as Stephen replied.
"Son," Stephen turned to his son, "If, in the future, you ever come across Boss's daughter, make sure you help her, no matter the cost. After all, I am afraid she would be the only family of yours left in this world by tomorrow."
"I…hic…will…protect…her." The boy said amid his cries that turned sorrowful as he looked at the resolved faces of his father and the Boss.
"Good, that's my brave little urchin." Stephen hugged his son one last time and turned towards the boss of their Pirate ship.
"Boss, Shall we?"
"Dad, please. We can still run away. The four of us can survive if we used the power of all the pirates." The girl still relented to leave her father, amidst all his efforts to placate her.
David Washer sighed once more as he looked at the face of his daughter and the face of the son of his right-hand man, Stephen. They were way too young to be left all alone in this world. Moreover, they had made a cruel decision to send the two children in opposite directions so that at least one of them might survive.
David Washer took out an inconspicuous ring from his trouser pockets and pierced it on the tip of his tongue. The ring was made from copper and had a gem inlaid at its centre. He then gently closed his mouth until it looked like he hadn't concealed anything strange inside his mouth. He then opened and closed his mouth a few times to ensure that the ring pierced into his tongue didn't hamper his speech.
Formless energy flowed across his body and gushed into the ring pierced into his tongue and seemed to invoke a phenomenon that could affect reality.
A formless force wrapped around the two children and formed multiple layers around their bodies until it looked like a cocoon. Since it was transparent, the two children could still gaze at their surroundings, but they could no longer move their bodies.
David Washer also made some considerations so that the two children could still blink their eyes and breathe through their nose. There was also barely sufficient space left above their chest for the contraction and expansion of their lungs that necessitated the extra space.
"May the Heavenly Voyager guide your paths to survival." The two men prayed in unison as David Washer manipulated the formless force.
The bodies of the two children were lifted and sent into the two tunnels that had mysteriously appeared on the opposite ends of their room respectively.
The girl had her vision abruptly turn dark as her body passed through the tunnel after which her surroundings were filled with a shade of mild yellow. The moment she looked at her surroundings, the girl immediately guessed that she had been thrown into the river.
The formless force silently pulled her body into the depths of the water before proceeding to travel in a certain direction. The girl could only silently shed her tears as she watched the silhouette of the ship she grew up in go further and further away.
Bright lights illuminated the surface next to the ship as the surrounding waters were dyed in a shade of red while bits and pieces of the framework that encompassed the ship came apart one by one and fell into the river.
"Stephen, let us enact a glorious battle. All for the survival of our children," David Washer said.
"As you command, Boss." Stephen saluted.
The two men walked out of the room and turned into a hallway when David Washer pulled a lever situated next to an altar. Various runes surfaced above the altar and merged together into a complicated diagram of a room. The diagram looked like the exact replica of the room they had been in just now.
David Washer inserted his energy into the altar when the runes on its surface lit up with a fluorescent hue and shattered into minute fragments of light until they ultimately dissolved into the ether.
Immediately, the room they had been in before corroded into liquid in a matter of seconds and then evaporated into mist that was further compressed into a stone. The stone then landed in the hands of David Washer who swallowed it.
"Gaah," The man clutched his stomach in pain as blue veins swelled up all across his body, looking like they might burst any second.
"Preparations are complete. Shall we greet those hypocrites?" David Washer took a few moments to calm his body that seemed to be getting unstable as time passed on.
"It has been a pleasure serving you Boss." Stephen kneeled on one knee and made a wave pattern across his chest with his ring finger, a sign that followers of the Heavenly Voyager performed to show their utmost respect to someone.
"It is my pleasure to have travelled with a comrade like you." David Washer too made a similar hand motion and proceeded to walk upstairs. With each step he took, his surroundings rocked a little, a clear sign that their attackers were gaining an upper hand.
The duo quickly approached the deck of their ship and noticed that the situation was grimmer than what they had assumed before.
"It seems that they have extensively planned to snuff us out from existence." David Washer commented as he gazed at four ships that had surrounded them from behind while another ship calmly stood at their front.
This ship looked 10 times the size of their ship and also possessed a regal aura. Energy cannons 5 times the size of their body were lined all across its deck while rows and rows of soldiers stood behind a man who looked to be the person-in-charge of this mission.
The man wore a full-body armour made from silver while a golden cape adorned on his back. On his chest plate was a huge symbol of an eye that was engraved with gold while his helmet was composed of four concentric rings that were arranged in a pyramid formation. The aura released by this man sent shivers into the heart of the duo.
"The Royal family, and a level 4 at that." David Washer murmured.
"The captain and the vice-captain have come out." The surrounding Pirates exclaimed in excitement. The appearance of the two strongest experts in their ship regained their sense of confidence.
"David Washer and Stephen Miller; so, the two rats have finally decided to come out." The man with the silver armour said. His voice was amplified to echo all across the surrounding waters.
"Stephen, you fight the four ships at the back. Try to stall for as long as you can while not making it obvious." David Washer whispered to his side before shouting to the front, "This Lord was having fun with a few royals in my cabin. Oh my, they were delicious. Or should I say, as expected of a royal?"
David Washer flew towards the silver armoured man, followed by 20 of his subordinates while Stephen took the rest and launched themselves towards the back.
"Haha, you? Having fun with a few Royals?" The silver armoured man laughed uncontrollably as if he had heard the funniest joke in his life.
"Vermin like you don't even qualify to breathe the same air as us Royals." The silver armoured man waved his hand towards David Washer.
"Heuk," A formless force hit David Washer and his 20 subordinates and pummelled them into the river below.
"Just some rats." The silver armoured man waved his cape and commanded his men to investigate their surroundings to check the status of the pirates he had sent reeling into the river.
"Blood, mush, or broken bones?" The silver armoured man though in amusement of the state of the pirates who suffered a hit from him.
"Divine Might!"
A shout reverberated through their surroundings before a heavy impact slammed into their ship, making it sway from one end to the other in the river waters.
"Well, it seems he's still alive." The silver armoured man nonchalantly waved his hands when the people behind him dispersed into the surroundings. It was then he noticed that a green fog had wrapped around the four ships that had cornered the pirate ship from behind. As he trained his ears in its direction to focus on the sound, he could hear indistinct screams of the people aboard the four ships.
"What the…?" The silver armoured man felt confused for a moment when another powerful impact slammed into the side of his ship.
"This Lord is stronger than you think." David Washer smirked as he flew into the air and threw a bunch of heads onto the deck.
望子成龍