Before Iona could even take a moment, a high-speed knife appeared directly in front of her, right into the small gap in her helmet exposing her face. Iona leaned back, narrowly catching the knife in her teeth.

She kept the movement back going as more knives appeared, but it was only the first one that gave her trouble. She spat it out, and looked around as she ducked and weaved, constantly moving in strange ways to not run eye-first into another knife.

She saw him then. A pirate, gaudily dressed, on the last ship in the port. She gave him a quick look with her blessing.

[Captain of the Black Shark] – Wood

[Blood-drenched Pirate Admiral of the Black Shark] – Spatial

The second class was significantly lower than the first one, and Iona was smelling a reset at some point in his history. This must be Lord Admiral Bloodpyre.

The two classes were giving her a moment’s pause. The narrower a class was, the more powerful it tended to be. The pirate had gone all-in on his ship. If he didn’t have his ship, he lost nearly all of his class skills, and would cripple his ability to level up.

Given that he was pushing 300, and had to have gotten them at 256 – he knew what he was doing.

Iona kept looking over the basics, not checking anything in-depth, and noted that the shark she’d punched was companion to the pirate. One line in particular caught her eye.

She couldn’t help but laugh.

Lord Admiral Bloodpyre

[Name: Alfie]

Not even Alfred!

Iona still couldn’t hear, but couldn’t help saying something.

"Alfie? Seriously, your name is Alfie?"

She couldn’t hear the pirate’s response, but from how he was going all red and swinging a saber around Iona could make some guesses.

One last triple-check confirmed that the man, like all of the other magic-users Iona had encountered so far, was a sorcerer, not a wizard. Oh, sure the System still [Analyze]d both as mages, but the wizards – the "real" mages – were quite picky at the distinction, and bristled whenever people used the catch-all term "mage" for them.

It was a great way to distract them. Just start mentioning it to them mid-fight, and they’d get distracted as they started to rant about the differences, and how they were sooo much better than sorcerers who only used System-granted skills, and not whatever nonsense the "real mages" used.

Iona had never heard what the "real mages" used, she’d usually gotten an arrow through said wizard’s head by that point.

Either way, Alfie didn’t have any of the System skills that wizards usually had.

Iona grabbed her bow, and fired a few arrows at the pirate. The ship itself seemed to come alive, wooden planks rearranging themselves in small ways to get in the way of the arrows.

Bah. Blasted narrow classes, blasted narrow skills. Made Alfie unreasonably powerful on his ship, and simple arrows wouldn’t do the trick.

Either way, she wasn’t going to stand back and let the pirate warp knives into her face. Iona carefully eyed the stone the port was built on, the wooden docks, and the pirate’s ship, tied up, quickly calculating material strengths and distances. Then she put her round shield up, covering her face entirely, and started to run.

She felt a number of weapons hit her shield, but she powered through them all, only staggering once as a "small" anchor hit her. Then she was far enough, fast enough, and she leapt, crossing the gap from the port to the deck of the ship in a single leap.

Then she was on the ship, gracefully moving from spot to spot as the ship itself seemed to rise up against her. The deck shifted and tried to open holes up for Iona to fall through, the planks twisted and tried to throw her balance off.

Iona had far, far too much dexterity to be concerned about that, as she rapidly ran over to where the pirate captain was. Alfie kept summoning weapons into his hands, then throwing them, only for them to promptly flicker out of existence –

And back into existence at a random angle at Iona, who twisted, dodged, and deflected the attacks.

She made it to the pirate, and with a savage grin, put her axe through his head.

Or would’ve, if he hadn’t bloody teleported away!

Iona cursed, then a mace hit her on the small of the back, with enough speed to make her stumble forward. She whirled around, seeing Alfie on the other side of the ship, the planks twisting and turning into more defenses.

Iona realized she’d screwed up. The pirate admiral had two classes relating to his ship, and was lord and master of his domain. Iona had boosts and powerful gear, but it wasn’t quite enough for this fight, not when she needed to brave a hail of steel and wood, only to turn around and need to do it again.

A new plan was needed. Iona fought her way to the front of the ship, then screamed in pain as a spear somehow managed to puncture her armor, her [Celestial Armaments] skill, her [Stellar Body] skill, and her vitality. She looked down at the spear, the tip blood, enchantments glowing along the length.

Iona gritted her teeth. This wasn’t the time to deal with the spear running through her flank – and her brief lessons from the healer teaching the squires first aid once upon a time had told her not to. She just thanked Lunaris and Selene that it hadn’t hit anything immediately vital, although it meant Iona was unfortunately due to find a healer next, instead of rushing to Julie.

Whining and wailing and gnashing her teeth would do Iona no good now. Deal with the threat here and now, stop herself bleeding out later.

Unlike the many squires and Valkyries, who never had a later to stop themselves bleeding out.

Iona shook her head, resetting herself, and continued her charge towards the pirate. She briefly debated trying to extract the spear from herself and throwing it at Alfie, but no. Even if it could break the planks, he’d just teleport out of range. She made it to him, faked an attack at Alfie, who just teleported away again. Iona twisted, and gracefully exited the ship, leaping back to dry land.

Alfie was back up in the crow’s nest, waving his saber around and probably taunting her. Iona didn’t care enough to try and read his lips, not that she had any skill in the matter.

[*ding!* You have learned the General Skill [Lip Reading]. Would you like to replace a skill with it?]

Iona dismissed the notification, instead studying Alfie and his skills in detail.

Disgustingly, he had almost all his mana… although one of his skills let him pull Arcanite from anywhere it was located on his ship. Which explained that, his skills weren’t offering such a massive discount as to negate all his costs.

A mage that could go forever? A complete nightmare.

Attacking Iona from a distance was significantly harder than attacking her while she was on the ship, just due to the nature of his skills. It was easier to dodge the attacks, and Iona gracefully danced around the flurry of blades as they were conjured around her.

She continued to read his skills, and a piece of the puzzle clicked. He could re-use weapons on his ship – but once he conjured them off his ship, like he was doing now, Alfie couldn’t re-use the weapon, not without leaving and gathering them back up.

Iona kept reading his skills, getting more and more frustrated. He seemed to be invincible while on his ship, and –

Wait.

That was it.

Iona checked, and felt a vicious smile overtake her face. The pirate captain had a skill for the ship’s hull. Unlike [Reinforced Hull], [Eternally Regrowing Bulwark] was an active skill, not a passive skill. The downside to a passive was it could be overwhelmed and broken, and since all of Alfie’s power relied on him being on his ship, he’d gotten a powerful variant that could heal whatever damage was done.

At the cost of mana.

Iona looked at her axe as she cartwheeled to avoid a flurry of arrows.

She was not a lumberjack, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

So began the dance between Iona and Alfie. She’d hit the hull as hard as she could, with her axe, and with her gauntlets, having mentally reshaped the Mallium to form a row of spikes on her knuckles. When she punched through a plank, she’d grab it on the way out and flung it into the water.

Alfie wasn’t taking this lying down, and continued his attacks. With more stable footing though, Iona was able to duck and weave – although she occasionally screwed up, the spear going through her stopping one twist or another.

Iona was bleeding though, painting the dock red even as she ripped and tore planks off the ship, keeping an eye on the captain’s mana. She anticipated a trick, and even if the captain’s mana was empty, she wasn’t going back on the ship. Not with the ease that he could hide and pull more mana.

No, Iona was staying here until the ship was sunk, and Alfie’s power was gone.

Distantly, she noted that the slaves seemed to be in the process of freeing themselves, aided by the slaves she’d freed in town. She just hoped it’d go smoothly over there – Iona didn’t have the ability to fight off pirates interfering with the slaves, not while keeping Alfie here busy.

Her [Vow] demanded that she protect, but it allowed for judgment calls. It didn’t demand the impossible. If she wasn’t fighting Alfie, he’d be able to attack the prisoners. Iona leaving to fight remaining pirates would end up with a similar outcome. As a result? She was allowed to choose how to interpret her [Vow] in the current situation.

Iona’s world was narrowing. The edges of her vision went dark, as she tunneled and focused solely on the task in front of her. Right before her vision became a single point, focused on the ship, she noticed that the shark was back, and circling.

So much for the plan of going underwater to break open the last few holes to sink the ship. Iona didn’t like the odds of her versus shark while underwater.

The shark didn’t like his odds versus Iona above water. Neither would move into the other’s domain.

Iona was getting frustrated though. It didn’t feel like she was making progress, even though she knew she was. She also didn’t know how she was going to finish sinking the ship – not until a pig ran past her, screaming and on fire.

Right.

Iona grabbed the pig with her left hand, ripped open a section of the hull with her right, and before [Eternally Regrowing Bulwark] could regrow that segment of the hull, shoved said scorching swine into the hull. Blood sprayed from her injury onto the hull, a bloody reminder of where she’d inserted the first pig.

Iona had no idea how well that would work, but even if Alfie instantly killed the pig, the fat and flesh would merrily burn. Iona hadn’t seen an anti-fire skill, and she doubted that a pig would count as a weapon that Alfie could teleport.

As she shoved the 4th pig into the ship, Alfie suddenly started to target the remaining surviving pigs. Iona didn’t see that though, she was wholly focused on her task. The dock was getting slick with Iona’s blood, as her constant movements and dodging of attacks worked the spear inside of her, enlarging the wound, letting her life blood spill into the water.

Poor shark was going nuts – so much tasty blood, bleeding right above him, and nothing to do.

Finally – finally - the smell of burning wood met Iona’s nostrils again, and she looked up, to see thick, black smoke rising from the ship. Alfie’s mana was dropping fast, and not going back up. It could be a trap, but at this point, the fire was raging through the decks of the ship.

Iona staggered back to the rocky ground, not wanting to risk the shark trying one last stunt. She was slowing down though, which was bad as more attacks were able to solidly land, small cuts opening up on her face.

Something gave way, and the ship started to go down fast. Alfie continued to scream impotently at Iona, who couldn’t care less.

Iona let out a curse as she saw Alfie jump from his ship into the water, and for him to emerge on the back of his shark, zooming to escape the cave and the sinking wreck of his ship. She was hurting, and hurting badly, and had hoped the ship sinking would’ve been enough.

Iona unslung her bow, letting [Strength from the Stars] continue to fuel her. Bless the skill for providing her with boundless energy, letting her fight and fight and fight.

The Dusk Valkyrie nocked an arrow, took an almost lazy aim, and let it loose, staggering as the normally unnoticed recoil caused the spear inside her to shake, falling to one knee as darkness threatened her vision.

[*ding!* You have slain a [Captain of the Black Shark - 311] (Wood)/ [Blood-drenched Pirate Admiral of the Black Shark - 270] (Spatial)]

With the notification, the confirmation of the kill, Iona couldn’t hold on anymore. She pitched forward as darkness took her.