“What are you doing?“ I shouted. ”That is not...“

But he wasn’t listening to me. Instead, he spread his arms, cutlasses in his hands, laughing wildly.

”[They Smell Blood].“ He bellowed and all around us battle-worn fins of sharks, and yet not quite substantial, rose out of the stone, circling the field of battle, as if the sharks were actually swimming through the stone we stood upon.

”Now all that is left for me to do is make you bleed.“ Bones hissed, brandishing his weapons before him.

Still, in my futile attempt to diffuse the situation, I almost did not see him coming. But come he did. He wove a net of steel upon me, I only evaded by ever throwing myself backwards. I did not even have the chance to halt for the fraction of a second it would take me to summon Kingsbane from its [Hidden Sheath]. Not until Zero lashed out at the pirate, still halfway wrapped around my torso, for the first time making Bones raise his cutlass in a parry, as he struck the spiked head of Zero out of the air, the sound from metal on metal ringing clear in the air.

Now I had Kingsbane in my hand, and I swung it wide, using the bigger reach I had to get myself some room to breathe. But instead of jumping back, as I would have expected every mortal to do when a giant sword came for his throat, he caught Kingsbane on the basket of his cutlass and just...parried it.

”Ah, you came bearing teeth now, did you? A golem and a sword, not the most curious combination I ever did see.“ He ducked under a whipping lash of Zero, who had freed himself from me at last, coiling up beside the pirate to distract him by being a constant threat to his side.

The ease with which he had held my sword strike, with all my [Improved Strength] and the momentum of my weighted sword was...disturbing, to say the least. I snarled. I was not the cleanest swordsman in the world, but I had seen my fair share of fighting. He wanted to make me bleed? I would choke him with my blood if that is what it would take to shut him up.

I sped forwards, slipping around the shark fins in the stone, hammering my sword in wild arcs, forcing him to deflect, to step back. I needed him on the back foot, I needed him in precarious balance, just once, and I would have my shot, his monstrous strength be damned.

He was holding back. He fought as I did, Core Skills only - if you ignored the damned sharks in the stone. And one more thing he did: He was enjoying every second of it. He was not playfighting, not in the least, his cuts I could only barely avoid, but he had to have a plethora of Skills at his disposal he could use to finish me of. And he was grinning.

He was just testing me, the bastard. He wanted me to show him my teeth? Did he want to see the man that had overcome more than his fair share of the monstrous and the mad? Did he want a fight? I would give him one worth telling his crew about.

Out of the corner of my eye, I kept tabs on Zero and waited until the chain was in a good position to strike, then, as I had slapped back one of Bones‘ cutlasses, I pumped my cheeks with air and shot a short and violent burst of [Cutting Winds] at his face.

”[Master of the Seven Winds]!“ He laughed as he stumbled back under the assault of the frosted air, his words ripped from his lips by the torrent I spew at him, then just...breathed the gust of wind in and shot it back at me. I was surprised and got hit in the chest, as the dreadful cold spread on my skin, and the ice crystals cut my shirt open.

But that was not all, laughing maniacally he turned and swung his weapons, the wind itself following his commands, pummeling me, driving me to the ground in a neverending torrent of air, until Zero had found an opening and made Bones duck once more as the chain sailed past, forcing the pirate to stop his assault on me.

Instead of standing up, I rolled to the side and swung Kingsbane in a desperate attack while the pirate was occupied with my chain, aiming for his ankles. But instead of hitting flesh, my sword hit a wall of...something, just short of the boot. A ghostly scale had materialized to intercept the scything blow, now cracking and raining in shards to the ground.

”That would be [Sea Serpent‘s Scales]. That was the third Skill you made me use. Now I really want to see what you can do. Bleed already. [Jetstream Onslaught].“

And he was gone. The next thing I felt was a cutlass piercing my left arm, while a dozen smaller wounds opened up all about my body, stricken by unseen forces. He was close, close enough to grin at me with his toothy grin, before he slammed his forehead onto my nose, throwing me back, while a cloud of blood followed my movement.

I slammed onto my back, my vision swimming, as I saw the fins of the sharks converge on me. Ghostly hammerhead sharks, strange creatures with heads formed like a hammer, shot after me, smelling the blood and opening their many-toothed maws to devour me. I felt primal fear, all the unease I had felt on the open sea were manifested in the creatures that assaulted me here.

I jumped to my feet and dove away, as the ghostly shark's jaws shut close under my feet. I shouted for Zero, as I jumped again with the help of [Airwalk]. I was reaching out with my wounded left arm for the chain, who had reacted quickly and was lashing through the air to reach me, while his other end grabbed after something to tether to.

It went all too quickly, but as I pulled mid-air, Zero had found a tree and I dragged myself through the air horizontally, evading the pit of sharks that had opened up beneath me. I slammed to the ground once again, but nimbly, albeit painfully, jumped to my feet once more. The wound in my arm was throbbing with the blood I was losing, and the sharks were closing in again.

Bones just stood there, cutlasses idly dangling at his sides, as he had watched my desperate attempts to evade the attacks of his sharks. The ground was his. The stone we fought upon was as good as a domain, with the sharks and my bleeding. I had no chance to endure a fight, not with having to watch my feet all the time. Defending against two cutlasses at once was enough under the best of circumstances.

He was smiling. "A shame you brought wind to a fight with the [Master of the Seven Winds], really. It is like you never had a chance.“ His sly smile slipped as he watched me jumping around the chasing sharks. “But you are a slippery one, I give you that. And fast, if not quite fast enough.“

I snarled again. The arrogance of the bastard! I had one more tactic, one more style of fighting, honed in the deepest pits of the earth. The one that made me the man I am. Which was not the style of a sword-fighting man. It was the lashing out of a cornered beast.

In a display of suicidal recklessness, I ran for him, throwing Zero into his [Chain Lash] and [Constrict] combination, and watched the pirate stepping aside and catching the violent slap of the chain on a ghostly scale, but then I threw Kingsbane. Still, as it had always been, it was not a weapon to be thrown, but I was rather strong and the sword was rather heavy, and a whirling blade that size was not so easily ignored, Twice-Born or not. Which is why the pirate slapped it out of the air, lightning-quick recovering from his parry of the chain.

Which might have been the opening I needed. Or not. I had no other option either way. I jumped, grabbing after my Ravenbeak hammer, activating [Stonehide] with all the Mana I had left to spend. Which was a lot, these days. Mid-air, I rammed him with the force and weight of a man-sized statue thrown by an onager, barrelling into the tall pirate.

I had not much range movement under the layers and layers of stone that wrapped around my body, but that had not been the point. The point had been the weight I had thrown onto him. The point had been the five seconds or so I would be able to ignore the sharks, the steel in his hands, and all the other things that would distract me. Focussing on one thing, and one thing only, trap him under my weight and carve his face in with the hammer.

Once, my hammer slammed down and a scale cracked under the force of the blow. Twice, my hammer rose and fell, and a scale shattered under the impact. I felt the teeth of sharks gnashing and scratching over the stony skin of my legs, but I did not budge, lying on top of the still grinning pirate, grabbing him with my free hand, striking with the other.

Thrice, my hammer fell, and no scale came to deflect the blow. The Ravenbeak smacked the root of Bones‘ nose, although he struggled and fought, and the head of the hammer slipped over the forearm he had freed to protect himself with. A bad blow, a glancing blow. But a blow still.

Blood ran over his lips and into the salt and pepper beard of his, and he grinned wider than he ever had, his teeth red from the blood. He looked insane, but then again, snarling and grinding my teeth as I wrestled with him for another strike, maybe so was I.

But [Stonehide] ended, the precious seconds had ticked away, and the weight that had pinned the pirate down vanished, as did the protection from the ghostly hammerhead sharks, which began to take bites out of my legs. Bones just kicked. I flew back, into the raging sharks, slamming hard onto my back.

But they were gone.

”At last!“ He said, showing his red-stained teeth, struggling to his feet. “The young lad has shown what he is made of. I had been dying to know how a cub like you had been able to defeat a man like Barak Bloodbraid.“

I spat before him, as I struggled to my feet.

“Fuck you.“ I panted numb with pain. “If that was a test...fuck you even more.“

“A test, maybe. But more than that...it was fun, more fun than I had in a long time.“

“You are insane.“

”Maybe even that.“ He gloated. “But then again...I am strong enough to get what I want, most of the time. How would I know if you are worth the word that came out of your mouth? For all I know, you could have stumbled over the dead body of the Bloodbraid and cut off his head for a profit. Which I would not have minded, but the thought of you taking out the safe haven of a band of slavers...I had to be sure you had it in you.“

“And do I? Pass your damn test, that is?“

“No. You are playing with godlings and Twice-Born, now. You fight like a mortal and a desperate one at that. But I see the will in you - to fight and survive to the very last breath. Which is something. Something stupid, if you ask me, because one should only take fights one is sure to win, but it is something.“ He looked at me appraisingly. “But there is a heart in that broken body of yours. I can respect that. The will to go far.“

“And why would that matter?“

His eyes were wide in excitement as he spoke: “Because I have seen the oceans. I have sailed the seas. I have thrown down with the seven winds and made them mine. There is not much left to see in the world that is interesting to me. But there is another world out there, the sea of stars, the ocean of the gods. I want to make it mine, as I made this one mine.“

“What are you talking about?“

“A captain is nothing without his crew and his ship. And mortals cannot follow me where only gods can walk.“

“Are you...trying to recruit me?“ I asked, astounded by the bluntness and the jumps the man made in the attitude he displayed towards me. He was a madman indeed, as was made clear as he grinned at me with his bloody beard and the glint of danger and unlimited aspiration in his eyes.