The Biovore corvette’s collision with the pirate frigate, Last Dawn, was not a gentle affair.

  A point-blank shot from a heavy arcane cannon, followed by a vicious ram at full speed against the rear, would be enough to destroy any lesser warship. The Last Dawn, however, was a mighty frigate. Nearly a hundred metres in length, with five massive decks, and armoured by both steel plates and protective enchantments, the vessel could remain intact and buoyant even after suffering catastrophic impacts.

  Indeed, it was not at risk of sinking, even after such a devastating attack. However, it was crippled beyond movement and wounded in a way that would require extensive time and considerable cost to repair.

  That was enough to incur Admiral Rann’s undying wrath.

  “I want,” he hissed, “every gun we have firing on that boat. And send out an arcane message to those idiots on the schooners. If they do not have that corvette secured by the end of the hour, I will have them all skinned for letting it ram into MY SHIP!”

  The nervous first mate nodded. Orders were rapidly given out, with the arcane messages first reaching the sergeants and quartermasters of the frigates, before signalling further out to the schooner vessels below.

  In all honesty, the command was redundant. The corsairs in Rann’s fleet were experienced dogs of war. Already, the schooners were swarming the alien-looking corvette. With its prow stuck inside Rann’s moored frigate, the enemy had nowhere to run.

  The Admiral briefly glanced at the ship. He had seen many strange sights in his life; one did not rise to the rank of a pirate admiral without braving great dangers, both mundane and arcane. The seas of the Slaver Isles bred all manner of monstrosities. Some he had fought; most he was forced to flee from. But experience and knowledge were gained in either case — precious commodities for any sailor.

  And so, faced with the alien, flesh-wrapped corvette, Rann did not panic. The shape of it was familiar. He already had an inkling of what it was.

  “Hey, you.” Ronn grabbed his communication officer. “Did the Duskcrowns send any ships to this region lately?”

  “N-no, sir. We are in the outer waters of the Slaver Isles. The royals don’t deploy their vessels this far from the Maelstrom.”

  Yet the corvette attacking him was definitely a product of elder magic. He would have assumed it was just another messed-up experimental vessel from their enigmatic sponsors, but the ship was clearly flying the noble flags of the north. A captured vessel, then.

  “I thought the northern blue-bloods all died when old Augustus blew them up with his flying dreadnought a few months ago,” Rann growled. “Send a message to Lord Drake. She’ll want to know there are survivors, and that they might have snagged one of the Duskcrowns’ toys.”

  Among other things, Rann privately seethed as he imagined the Pirate Lord’s expression when he would have to report to her his losses. It was supposed to be a simple raiding mission, but now his fleet was three ships down. She wouldn’t kill him — good admirals were hard to come by, even from a Pirate Lord’s army — but she could have him publicly flogged before the other admirals and bar him from promoting to a higher position in the future.

  Not going to happen. So long as I secure the damn monster corvette, the losses will be deemed acceptable. Hopefully.

  “Sir, we are being boarded,” one of the captains nervously told him, to Rann’s great irritation. “The force we sent to repel the enemy had failed.”

  Fools. He already knew that. “Ignore them. They are stuck in the lower levels. Five decks and two hundred men separate us from them. They won’t make it up here.”

  “But, Sir… They are moving fast. They’ve already reached the fourth deck. Our men are dying too quickly…”

  Great. That meant a Jewelled Core amongst their ranks. By Saint Elizabeth’s tits, now on top of two of his corvettes destroyed, he was going to lose a good chunk of his crew as well.

  “Send Master Sergeant Valion with fifteen of the elites Lord Drake loaned us. Tell him he’s to bring me the boarders’ heads, or I’ll have his. And keep those elites alive! We can’t afford to lose them!”

  Just one shit after another… Could this day get any worse?

  “Sir! Sir! The Imperials are attacking!” someone shouted from the crow’s nest. “Their commander has sullied out! It’s the Hero of the 24th Crusade! She—”

  An arcane fireball smashed against the mast, killing the man instantly. Blood and fire rained over the deck. The pirates began to panic as more fireballs came hurling upon their frigate — moored like a sitting duck; an easy target for artillery.

  Admiral Rann sighed. “Alright, fuck this. No more playing around.”

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  His Sapphire Core thrummed to life.

  “Time to kill them all.”

  ~~~

  “Think they will be alright? That was a hard crash.”

  Julie’s concern for the boarding party was touching, but no one else on deck had concern to spare at the moment.

  “I think we have bigger problems to worry about, Julie!” Bori shouted as he sliced the neck of a pirate and kicked his bleeding body over the ledge.

  Two more soon replaced the dead raider, swinging over from the sails of smaller vessels and landing onto the deck of the Biovore corvette.

  The expedition’s vessel was surrounded. With its prow buried deep into the enemy’s flagship, it was a sitting target. The other pirate schooners that had been shooting and chasing them earlier had caught up, now gnashing into the vessel like hungry sharks. Four in total, their cannons roared as they closed the distance, blasting holes in the ship while grappling hooks began biting into her flanks.

  The shriek of iron on wood rang out as the first schooner smashed alongside, guns howling as musket shots accompanied light cannon fire. Grapnels soared through the air, clattering onto the Biovore’s rails. Pirates swung across in arcs, pistols barking and sabres flashing.

  Joarris cursed as he felt the bullets smash into his shield. Behind him, Alvine threw her javelins, catching the pirates mid-swing and sending their impaled bodies screaming to the waters below.

  Another schooner rammed on the starboard quarter, causing the defenders to stumble. Boarding planks thudding down, some rammed into the burning hull breaches left by the exploding schooner earlier. Eager corsairs disgorged from their ships and came pouring into the Biovore like ants, swarming across the planks in waves.

  The rest climbed up the ladders and ropes attached to the side of the ship. Blades clenched in their teeth, pistols barking, grenades thrown up and over the railings… It was complete chaos.

  But the toll was heavy on the pirates’ end. Though few in numbers, the defenders were not idle, nor were they weak. Julie fired her longbow point-blank into the first wave, her sonic arrows hitting hard enough to disintegrate multiple pirates into bloody giblets with a single shot. Raharim summoned spectral skeletons which hacked at grappling lines with axes, severing the ropes and plunging the attackers into the foaming sea. Dulcina was a wraith upon the deck, invisible and silent as she rapier skewered one pirate after another, sending them hurling over the rail.

  The six defenders were not without external aid as well. Though told to strictly remain below deck for their safety, occasional barks of dwarven shotguns took out a corsair or two when they strayed too close to an open hatch or porthole.

  But the greatest aid came not from the dwarves. Within the choppy waves, great tentacles roared out of the waters, each as thick as a mast and scarred with bony ridges.

  Peythra commanded her monstrous vessel well, the colossal appendages writhing skywards before they came crashing down. A nearby schooner nearly capsized under the combined impact of three tentacles. Another limb swept across the deck of the second schooner, the crushing blow smashing aside the mast and tossing broken bodies into the sea in a bloody spray.

  Some of the pirates were intercepted midair as they swung on the boarding rope. The slick appendage of the Biovore snapped out of the water, prioritising the higher-ranked pirate Chosens. It caught them with uncanny precision, violently squeezing the screaming raider in their grasp until the pirates' mana-reinforced bodies came apart like a wet, fleshy balloon.

  The deck was a storm of steel, smoke, and blood — the clash of swords against swords, the roar of pistols, the wet crunch of blades biting flesh. The sea frothed with crimson.

  A tenuous balance was maintained. The defence held.

  But that was only for the open deck. There was no one defending the lower levels, where pirates were still swarming into the fleshy hull breaches.

  “There are getting into the lower decks! Should we send someone down there to repel them?” Bori shouted.

  “No need. The elves have it handled. There’s a reason why they left the hull open,” Alvine grimaced. “Poor souls. I almost feel bad for the pirates. Hopefully, they have enough sense to run away.”

  “Or to shoot themselves once they find out there’s no escape,” Dulcina hummed happily.

  ~~~

  Within the bowels of the Biovore, another battle was taking place between the ship and the invaders.

  Unlike the one above deck, however, this one was completely and horrifically one-sided.

  “What kind of ship is this?!” one of the boarders screamed as the walls closed in. Fleshy tendrils and feelers reached out from them. No matter how the pirates shot or cut at the walls, the slimy confines squeezed ever closer.

  Most pirates could not comprehend what they were looking at. The horrors of the oceans felt tame compared to the sights before them. Toothed orifices, clusters of tendrils, jutting ribs, squirming brown guts, opened torsos that held beating organs, eyes and mouths on the floors and ceiling, the air reeked of vomit…

  It was a nightmare. Those who tried to escape found the entrance they used earlier blocked by pillars of bones and hardened sinew. Those desperate enough to advance found even greater horrors.

  “Goddess, help me! Get them off me, get them out of me!” A pirate screamed as a swarm of writhing, eyeless maggot-things the size of fingers poured from the ship’s orifices — hundreds swiftly crawling over him as they bit and dug into his flesh. His comrades tried to help, but their sabres proved ineffectual in the ever-tightening space, where they couldn’t even wind up for a swing or an Arte.

  In his haste to help, one of the pirates accidentally slashed against an intestine-looking tube on the ceiling. The bloated colon burst open instantly. A flood of broiling green liquid struck the pirate head-on as he looked up. The acid flooded his mouth, throat and lungs, killing him instantly as he tried drawing breath to scream.

  A man was slumped on the floor, shaking and weeping uncontrollably as the ship’s flesh crept over him. Another was desperately slashing at the walls, eyes mad and knuckles white where he gripped his dagger, his lips whimpering prayers of eternal repentance so long as he could dig his way out.

  One pirate looked around, his eyes surprisingly calm. He then placed his loaded pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Almost twenty pirates from four different schooners had dared to venture into the belly of the ship, hoping to gain glory and prestige by being the first to capture the strange vessel for their captains.

  None would see the light of day ever again, even as they lived on for a very long time.