Sky found himself unable to sleep in the room. They had spent time with Jericho's family talking and eating. Sky spoke the least as he was mostly listening and chiming in at times. Jay already seemed to be a part of the family and talked to everyone.
Once it was obvious everyone was tired they each headed to their assigned rooms. Jericho and Mabel shared a room, Jay and Katelyn shared a room, whereas Sky kept a room to himself.
Sky read the map given to him by Madame. He had a bit more than two days to reach the location but the location itself was no further than half a day, even less so if Sky could use his wind to speed it up.
Unable to sleep, Sky teleported out of the house and decided to wander around the island. He found himself sitting at the beach thinking.
"You can come out now, I know you're there, Jules."
The head of a mermaid popped out of the water. Her mermaid head transformed back to a human and walked towards Sky.
"Did I say something wrong, Master?" Jules asked.
Sky looked at Jules. "Yes, you just reminded me of something, that's all. And stop calling me Master from now on."
Perplexed, Jules nodded as she sat beside Sky. Both staring at the bright full moon.
"Jules…"
"Yes?"
"If you had the chance to go somewhere far away, where it's dangerous, would you go?"
"Somewhere far away and dangerous? Not at all." Jules shook her head.
"What if this place could make you stronger, infinitely stronger than you could possibly imagine, would you then go?"
Jules took a second to answer.
"No… look at me, I selfishly tried to obtain the nightmare sword I swore to protect and keep secret, all for power, and look where that got me. I am a slave now and possibly for the rest of my life I will always be one. I didn't even get a chance to see the sword." Jules hugged her knees tightly.
"Hm… you have a point."
"Is this place you're talking about, this dangerous place, do you have to go there?"
"No… no not really."
"If you only look at the benefits but ignore the price you'll severely regret it, like I do. I lost my freedom, my brother was captured and is locked up, my parents must be worried sick about us, my great-great… something grandfather must be rolling in his grave because of me."
"Do mermaids have graves?"
"Some do. Sometimes we bury our kind on land but that is extremely rare. We usually just hold a memorial for them, before releasing their bodies to the sea to be consumed by the critters and whatnot, so they can always continue being a part of the sea. I believe fishmen also follow that tradition. My grandfather was buried somewhere secret."
"I see." Sky learned something from them.
"Mas… what can I call you if not master?" Jules asked.
"You can call me whatever you want. I don't want you to call me master anymore, I thought I'd like it but no not really."
"Can I call you Joe?"
"..." Sky.
There was a smirk on her face.
"Why Joe? And why does it have to be another name that starts with a J?"
"It's the first name that came to mind."
"Just… call me by my name, or Captain."
"Alright, Cap'n."
"Eh, good enough. Go back to the ocean and sleep there so nobody can see you."
"Aw… but I dun' wanna!" With a groan Jules swam back to the ocean.
Sky stood up and wiped the sand from his pants before returning to his bed.
'Let's see… if I go to the land of the Gods, what benefits are there? Purple scrolls, more power, more abilities, more exp, more items, getting to meet new people, explore a new never before seen world, more money, levels, new unexplored dungeons which is fun. But about the possible costs? My death, my crew's deaths, powerful enemies, never being able to go back home, being too weak to defend myself, Madame actually being a traitor who will imprison me or kill me… no, the cost is too much. I don't have an actual reason to go there, not now, not ever.'
Sky hugged his pillow and faced the wall.
'The Land of the Gods… is it the right choice not to go? I wonder if it is…' Sky closed his eyes until he was able to sleep.
Meanwhile…
Far away there is a bald, skinny man licking the blood off his blade. Nearly his entire body was covered in blood. Beside him were the bodies of the people he killed, the number was very well in the hundreds and they were all innocents, kids, women, men, Caribbean men, no one was spared.
In front of him was a beautiful young woman with short red hair, wearing an orange dress crying, unable to move and no one to help her.
"Heh… if only you had accepted to be my wife I wouldn't have killed everyone in the village. You hurt my feelings, and that is why everyone here died, because of you." The man continued licking the knife as if it was a lollipop.
The woman had no idea what to say. She had never met this man before in her life, then out of the blue he asks her to marry him, she obviously declines, and before she realizes it he killed everyone she knew and loved in less than ten minutes leaving her for last.
"This is why I submitted that law so that it is illegal for women to reject a man's marriage proposals! Oh well. It's not my fault it got rejected."
The man extended his knife at the woman's neck aiming to kill her but make her suffer slowly and painfully. She felt the tip of the knife on her neck, she was bleeding from the small cut.
The man's face changed expression, from a bloodthirsty, crazy killer, to someone calmer. He dropped the knife he was holding.
"UGH! Blood." The man could taste blood in his mouth and he nearly threw up. "If only he wasn't close I wouldn't have taken over his body, at least this body is stronger compared to the average person here. I will never get used to possessing a man's body, it just feels weird."
He examined his body. Ignoring the girl's existence he jumped on a small boat and sailed away. He used his strength to row the boat faster to his destination.
The girl was still processing the mental scars left by him. She touched her neck and saw a tiny bit of blood.
The man sailed to a location as he kept wondering about something important.
"Sky Rouge… you better come to the Land of the Gods." He said.
Some time later…
Sky walked down the stairs as he was yawning. Everyone else was already awake and eating.
"Captain, sorry we didn't wake you, you were having such a good sleep." Jay said.
Sky started to stretch out his limbs and back.
"It's fine. I don't remember the last time I overslept, it feels so good." Sky could have practiced more skills last night and leveled them up, such as elektrokinesis, but he decided to give himself a break for the next few days.
"Sky… I just thought of something." Jericho said.
"What's up?" Sky continued to stretch.
"What happened to the slaves?"
"Oh, Jules, she's… out there, remember?" Sky couldn't mention much about Jules in front of Jericho's family, the less they know about her the better.
"No, I meant the other slaves."
"Oh… ohhhh. Right. I'll see." Sky had completely forgotten about the other cleaning slaves. They hadn't stolen the ship otherwise the system would have notified him. And while they could escape, Sky was confident to find them.
They have a slave mark on noticeable parts of their bodies, mostly their faces and necks. If anyone were to help a slave escape their master they would be sent to jail and pay a heavy fine, worst case scenario they also become slaves, a very poetic punishment.
"I'll be right back."
"Sky, you don't want to eat first?" Mabel asked.
"Maybe later, I have to see this first." Sky hurriedly walked out of the house.
"Okay." Mabel didn't mind at all. They minded their business and continued talking to one another.
Sky walked through the busy crowds to get to his ship. He stood atop his ship, it was sparkly clean.
"Huh… they really didn't try to escape like those other slaves I killed." Sky was glad that they had learned their lesson.
He walked down to the crew's quarters. There he saw three women cleaning an already cleaned ship.
"HE'S HERE!" One of them saw Sky and screamed which made them all scream in terror. They huddled together and leaned back against the wall.
Sky took a look at the ship.
"Impressive cleaning. And you didn't try to escape?" Sky looked at them with one eyebrow raised.
"N-NO!" Phoebe said horrified.
"Are you sure?" Sky took a step closer to them.
"W-WE SWEAR! WE DIDN'T TRY TO ESCAPE!" Another slave said before Sky thought they really did try to escape, which they didn't.
"Okay, I believe you." Sky turned around after realizing nothing was wrong. Except one thing.
"Wait, have you guys eaten anything yesterday or today?" Sky looked at them as his eyes changed to a bright yellow color.
His eyes would usually be a dim-yellow color, but after the skill had evolved from {Eye of truth} to {Mind of truth} the color became brighter when activated.
He asked this question because they looked tired and weak. And since he had forgotten about their existence he didn't give them food nor water. Most of the prepared food was stored in his inventory due to the unlimited space and the fact it could keep the foods fresh.
Any ingredients are transformed to cards and stored safely in the kitchen.
All foods that are transformed to cards can indeed expire like all foods.
They all looked at each other, one of them said, "Y-YES! WE-"
Phoebe covered the slave's mouth, not letting her talk.
"MASTER! SORRY SHE MEANT TO SAY NO WE HAVEN'T EATEN AT ALL!"
Sky could tell they were telling the truth. In fact the reason they didn't eat, despite being hungry and having ingredients in the ship, is because they were afraid Sky would accuse them of stealing and kill them.
Phoebe stopped the other slave from talking because she knew lying about eating would be worse than telling the truth about them not eating.
Sky scoffed and took out a card with a barrel of water inside, and a plate full of sandwiches wrapped around in large leaves. He placed the food on the ground that would last them two days.
"Eat, or else…" Sky spoke and left them to their own devices.
Sky jumped down his ship happily.
"I am a good slave owner." Sky patted his shoulder, not being serious at all.
Walking through the crowds using identity to find more talented people, or people with good drops, he came across a group of people huddled together trying to get something. Out of curiosity Sky stopped to see what the commotion was about.
They were all trying to buy a newspaper from this one store. Many of those who read it gasped in horror. Sky made his way through the crowd of people and managed to snatch a newspaper himself, not before putting the correct amount of shells in the register.
Opening the paper
"Let's see… uh-huh, last night, serial killer and the ex-captain of the Happy exterminators crew, Emett Monarch, age 51, killed an entire island because a girl he never met before rejected his marriage proposal and is now on the loose, his bounty is at 99,000,000. There was only one survivor, and she claims Emett sailed away but acted weird at the end…
The Abyss family is now the world's most wanted criminals, each with a bounty of… 400,000,000 shells. The Warlord, the strongest and the head of the family has a bounty of 980,000,000 shells, nearly surpassing Nightmare with a bounty of 1,000,000,000 shells. Dang… I wish I had that kind of money." Sky thought.
With that money he could buy so much from the merchant. Sky continued reading the newspaper.
"The disappearance of Lucious Vanstrung has left the Caribbean shocked, sources believe that the Abyss family are responsible for his disappearance. Thank god…" Sky heaved a sigh of relief, to think the blame would be pinned on the Abyss family which was good for him.
While he was reading someone ran and collided with him, making him drop his newspaper but making the officer fall to the ground. The one who collided with Sky was a young Caribbean officer.
"Sorry!" The young officer got up and ran past Sky.
Just then many other Caribbean officers were running through a crowd of people even pushing some down by accident and not stopping, they were all going in one direction. Everyone was confused and annoyed by them at that moment.
Curious Sky decided to see what it was about.
'Is it Jules?' Sky thought. He quickly called her using the system.
"Jules, you there?"
"Hm? Yes, Cap'n, I'm here." Jules sounded tired and lazy on the other side. With nothing better to do she was sleeping trying to pass the time.
"So you aren't in trouble?" Sky was both relieved but also worried, if Jules wasn't the cause of all these Caribbean officers running, what was?
"No. Should I be in trouble?"
"Forget it. Just… keep out of trouble."
"I already am… I think? Unless I was sleepwalking, heheh." Jules chuckled a bit.
Sky ended the call and looked at what was happening. The majority of the Caribbean men were on the side of the island boarding Caribbean warships that were nearly or as grand as Melody. There were almost 2,000 Caribbean men on this island, yet 1,400 were boarding the ships.
Sky got closer reading the minds of some Caribbean men. After the first three it was clear none of them knew what was happening either, they were just given orders to board a ship.
'Interesting…' Sky looked around for a high ranking officer. There on top of one of the ships were two high ranking officers discussing something, they each had three tidal wave badges.
Sky got close enough to read their minds.
'So… who is hotter, Gina, or Rita? Gina has a nice a-'
Sky immediately stopped reading their minds since both officers weren't talking about anything important.
'Well… if those two officers can be nonchalant about the situation they probably have it under control.' Sky thought as he walked back to the house.
Meanwhile…
Three fishmen had nearly killed everyone in a human village. They tore down all the buildings and completely decimated the island trying to find a trace of a single person.
"Juvia, you said he headed this way!" The Warlord looked at her.
"There is no mistake about it! He did fly here, this is the closest island he could've gone to." Juvia said.
"We've been here for quite a while. We should leave before the Caribbean comes." Yok said. She became increasingly worried by the minute.
Yok was confident in fighting on water, but fighting humans on land put her in a disadvantage as she isn't used to fighting on land.
"I agree with you, sis!" The Warlord said, "And that's the infuriating part because now we don't know where he went to."
"How about we split up and look for him by ourselves?" Juvia suggested. As she said those words she realized she made an error and quickly covered her mouth. Even Yok, who was worried about her own safety was now worried about Juvia's safety.
Looking at the Warlord his eyes and mouth were widened in shock.
"Did you just fucking say that to me!" The Warlord couldn't believe she really said that.
"I'm sorry! It just slipped!" Juvia was worried, not because she feared her brother, but because she managed to hurt him.
The Warlord tightened his grip on his trident and he covered his face with his palms.
"Juvia… I agree, splitting will lead us to cover more ground, but we should never go alone, not after what happened to her." The Warlord looked at her with a serious expression.
Juvia nodded in agreement.
Just then he sensed something incredibly fast was approaching them.
"Crap! We were here for too long!"
Before they could leave a figure appeared before them, Xero.
"Xero…" The Warlord pulled Juvia and Yok behind them, signaling them both to leave.
Both Yok and Juvia looked at Xero in shock. Standing in front of them is the world's strongest Caribbean officer.
Xero didn't respond, he just looked around. There were a bunch of dead bodies, buildings burned down and destroyed, no one on the island was spared.
Seeing the death and destruction given to the innocents made Xero angry. But what was most important is that he was alone, except for the two fishmen standing behind them.
With a loud sigh, Xero said, "You're fucking dead! You and your family are all dead!"
"Leave my family out of this." The Warlord pointed his trident at Xero. The tip of his trident and hand was covered in mana that extended far.
"You shouldn't have mind manipulated my niece! I know it was you, Warlord! Who else could have the balls?" Xero took out a green war ax from a card he kept in his pocket at all times.
The blade of his war ax was covered in a thick layer of mana.
Both of them infused mana into their feet.
"Run!" Xero looked at Juvia and Yok.
"No!"
"Stop being fucking stubborn and run! Even with the scrolls I don't think I can beat him!"
Just then both of them slowed down time and began clashing on the island. Both swung their weapons with such great strength that the entire island trembled, all the debris and corpses were flown off to the ocean, and even the cloudy skies above them were pushed away.
Both Yok and Juvia were thrown off the island. While in the air Juvia hugged Yok to protect her.
Both managed to land in the ocean, without hesitating they both swam down with Juvia pulling Yok by the wrist.
Xero and The Warlord were trying to push each other away with their weapons. As they continued injecting more mana to their weapons the more power it was generating between them. Sparks of electricity flew between them that were progressively becoming stronger and fiercer.
Soon their blades didn't even connect anymore, only their mana was touching.
The Warlord gasped as he saw something and teleported away. The powerful clash between the two was so great that once all the accumulated mana was released the entire island broke in half.
"Shit!" Xero said. He looked at the Warlord weirdly. Just now he was thinking of using intense vibrations to kill him, but he teleported away.
Xero's greatest ability is the ability to slow down time, but the ability he uses to kill powerful foes is vibrations. He could generate enough powerful vibrations to kill powerful foes without touching them.
He could forcefully shake their brains until it became a pasty meat, or completely make their bodies explode, or explode all their blood cells.
Xero chuckled as he stared at the Warlord who was nervous.
"You chicken, Warlord?"
"Fuck you! That ability of yours is bullshit!" The Warlord kept his distance from him.
As far as he can tell both he and Xero had roughly the same amount of stats. But there is another reason The Warlord doesn't want to fight him even in water, his vibrations. As it turns out, Xero can kill anyone easier while underwater compared to land.
Just then The Warlord's eyes opened wide and he moved. Xero looked at the Warlord weirdly, but a realization soon came to be.
"You bastard! You have future foresight, don't you?"
Future foresight is another purple scroll ability that lets anyone see the future for a few seconds.
The Warlord ignored him and looked at the ocean, wondering if Yok and Juvia had swam far enough to safety.
Xero chased after the Warlord around the island, but the Warlord could teleport while using future foresight to help him. It is said that both Lucious and the Warlord are masters of teleportation.
Just then the Warlord once again gasped as he teleported outside of the island and onto the sea. There he decided it was enough and he teleported away.
"Pft… he got away, annoying bastard who only knows how to run away." Xero sighed as he stored his ax. Xero is tough to kill because he knows when to fight and when to run.