Writer's Note: Seasonal work over. SORRY FOR THE WAIT. I stopped all writing since I posted the last chapter. Had work from mid afternoon to midnight every day since I posted the chapter. Every two-three days release will be back on track. Been thinking of a xianxia/ sci-fi side project during my meal hours. Combining the two is more work than fantasy xianxia. Also saw Star Wars and I liked it. Now, just waiting on that Independence Day sequel. Anyway, the pirate ship has begun their assault on the deck of the commercial ship. Lance tasks Mei to steal into the pirate captain's cabin to steal all the valuables, the mysterious chest the top priority. However, no sea or ocean contains just one pirate vessel atop its waters. Where you find one, you can expect more. Enjoy.

Chapter 29: Black Sails

"Pirates on deck! Do not let them down below!" a sailor cried as their swords clashed with the pirates' weapons.

"Go. Go one floor down and jump out the window to theirs. They should have mana cannons on the flanks of their ship. You are at the Meteor Vessel Stage. It shouldn't be hard to push the cannon back with your spirit force and let the others barge in first.. The panther and Lingqi will rush in and provide the distraction you need to enter and slip away unnoticed. The goal remains the same," Lance began as he held Mei back.

"I will attack the deck of their ship and attempt to lure out the captain and first mate. You have until the time they're both dead, or the pirates decide to retreat. Go now!" Lance ordered as he summoned dozens of tiny bone mice as the pirates attempted to head to the ladder leading below deck.

"Be careful," Mei said as she ran below deck, Lingqi running behind her.

"Target the weaker ones first and let the other pirates see you eat their flesh to instill fear into their hearts. You and Lingqi must blaze stronger than the sun," Lance said and the panther dipped its head and followed the two soon after.

"Guns! Take out the guns. Use your magical cores of the first stage! We're attacking a ship from Pangu!" a pirate shouted, Lance's eyes narrowing at the strange weapons they pulled out from under their shirts. The weapons were pieces of wood and metal shaped like the cannons. They were in the shape of a rectangle with three-fourths of its length a long barrel. A shape of a lunar eclipse was on the back of the gun with the pirates holding the gun with one hand under the barrel and another on a small grip.

"Fire!" a pirate roared as he and a few others loaded a small magical core where the shape of the lunar eclipse was, the core shining as a loud bang resounded. A tiny mist burst from the barrels as a small beam was fired from the guns. Lance's eyes widened as sailors cried out, the beam entering their bodies without resistance. He narrowed in surprise and bewilderment as he was unscathed by three beams that hit him.

"Fuck! That one's someone at the Spirit Forming Stage!" a pirate yelled. "Pangu Continent's second cultivation stage."

"You idiot! He's at the fourth stage! That's a fucking Meteor Vessel! Why the hell is he here and how the fuck does he have mana inside him?" another cursed as he shot down a sailor. "Get the captain and first mate!"

"So these guns are incapable of hurting someone of a higher cultivation? It seems it's inferior to mana cannons," Lance muttered as two lava chains swirled from his wrists. Lava sizzled and wood burned as the chains began swirling toward the pirates.

"So many fucking mice! Somebody shoot a mana cannon at him! Get your arse on those cannons and fire!" a pirate yelled, this one larger and more muscular than the other pirates. Lance narrowed his eyes as the man dodged the lava chains, ignoring the screams as the lava chain blasted and melted the pirates on point of contact. Faces burned and arms flew after they were dismembered.

"That must be the first mate," Lance noted as he crossed his arms, the chains following the flow of his wrists and crossing as the pirate raised his sword as he leaped toward Lance. The pirate cursed and leaned his head back as far as he could, landing on his ass and back as Lance ran past him.

Pirates screamed as Lance made the chains smaller and whipped them toward the pirates on his path. The mice scrambled onto the planks and assaulted the deck of the pirate ship as Lance burned off the forearms of two pirates and took their guns.

"How do I use this thing?" Lance said as he pointed at a pirate and nothing happened. Annoyed, he spun the gun in his left hand and smashed the side of the gun onto a nearby pirate's head. Holding the other gun with both hands, he saw a small metal bar within a ring beneath the end of the barrel closest to the eclipse shape. He looked around and saw a pirate kill a sailor more closely, noting the pull the small bar with his right index finger.

"This core's too weak," Lance muttered, replacing it with a core of a magical beast of the Element Adept stage. He pointed the gun at a pirate and let out a gasp as he felt a minor recoil before seeing a crystalline beam penetrate and shatter inside the chest of the first pirate he saw. His lips curled as he heard screams below and began lashing his lava chains wildly all around him after tossing the gun into his storage ring.

"Who the fucking hell is burning my ship?" a voice roared, two doors flying from its hinges as a man in a black trench coat and pirate hat stormed out of his cabin. His eyes narrowed and the fire from the lava-burnt wood reflected from his eyes as he saw Lance. "A brat who barely finished sucking his mom's tits is messing with my ship? MY SHIP? What the fuck are you gents doing? How could you let him on my ship? Johnson, you're the fucking first mate! How the hell is he on my ship?"

"He's dangerous captain. He's a Meteor Vessel Stage practitioner from Pangu, and he's even a necromancer!" the first mate cried, leaping aboard the ship as he roared at the pirates. "The hell are you looking at? You going to kill the landlubbers or what? The captain and I can just take all the treasure."

"We're not the ones who landed on his own ass in fright," one pirate muttered as he raced past the first mate.

"Anyone else want to say something funny. Really, I'm all ears," Johnson snarled as the pirates loaded their guns and quickly continued the assault after they saw Johnson grab the sailor's neck from behind and snapped it like a twig.

"As expected of pirates: your methods are crude and ineffective. All you did was inspire mutiny down the road, when you are revealed to be at your weakest," Lance mocked as he made his lava chains thinner and hotter as they dug into the wood. "Are you my toys to experiment on today? There's not enough...bodies. I have a theory about souls, but there are too few of you."

"Kill him," the captain began but his first mate did not move. "Johnson? Why aren't you moving?"

"My feet....they burn!" the first mate screamed, the captain noticing the wood blackening around his feet.

"Burst," Lance grinned and his chains suddenly surged and expanded, blowing up the first mate's feet and legs to a few inches below the knees.

"How did you do that?" the captain gasped as the chains wrapped around the arms of the first mate. The first mate screamed as the lava chains tightened until there was no more flesh, cloth, and bone to burn. With this, the first mate would not be a threat any longer.

"Well, that's his problem. His cultivation was too weak, equivalent to the peak Spirit Forming Stage. You are about the equivalent of a middle Element Adept practitioner, but a warrior from the southern continent. I can sense the mana inside you. You'll suffice as a test subject," Lance smiled as the lava chains disappeared.

The pirate captain roared and brandished a sinister, barbed axe as he ran toward Lance. Lance had his arms outstretched, not caring for the pirate as orbs of water appeared and floated above his palms. The water surged as the crimson neidan converted his spirit energy into mana, his body directing the mana into the floating water orbs. Sweat poured down Lance's brow as the water began leaving the orbs, condensing five feet before him as the captain ran around the steering wheel and descended the eight stairs to the deck.

The water began to release a cold aura as it began to frost and turn to mist. As the pirate arrived a few feet before the condensing water, the orbs were completely drained and began a corporeal form of Lance's serpentine dragon body.

"Necromancers of the Darkness deal with the dead. Necromancers of the Water deal with the living. Feel despair and tremble," Lance laughed as he moved his arms toward the captain. The serpentine dragon roared, stunning all the pirates and sailors as they turned their heads to the source of the roar. The pirate captain's eyes trembled as he had never seen such a thing before.

"W, ,w, what kind of dragon is that? That's not shaped like a lizard," the pirate captain stuttered.

Lance said nothing as the dragon coiled up into the air, a frosty mist radiating from its body before it coiled down at the captain, its mouth opening as it reached the captain's body. The pirate's body jerked violently, the everyone on the decks of both ships completely stunned into silence as the ghost dragon disappeared into the body.

"AUGH!" an ear-piercing scream sounded from inside their minds, many ears popping and people on both ships fainting as the ghost dragon emerged from the body with the ghost of the captain in its jaws. The body of the pirate captain fell onto its knees, the body living but without a soul. Lance then motioned his hands and one hand formed a fist as the other grabbed the fist.

"Oh gods," a sailor gasped.

"What are we seeing?" a pirate rasped.

"C, captain," Johnson said, his vision blurred from the blood loss but still strong enough to sense the mana of his long time friend and captain. It was supposed to be a simple raid after their last raid made them enter the big times. They never expected this. Not this.

The ghost dragon spat out the ghost of the pirate captain, the ghost actually the soul of the captain. The pirates let go of their weapons as they lost the will to fight while Lance grabbed the ghost. The pirate ghost turned into a small flame the color of snow and water within Lance's grasp.

"Consumption of mana is too taxing. Still, this is a complete soul. According to the Necromonicon, I can use the soul and create a bone golem with complete control over it. Not a shred of free will will exist and the pirate becomes a puppet to live for all time. The sad part is, the golem is indestructible and only I can give his soul peace. If I die, he'll stay as a golem for all eternity. I need to find a way to integrate magic into martial arts. It's clear, through the existence of warriors who use mana and mages, that it is incomparably difficult to become both. Perhaps I should make a short spear so that one hand can cast magic as I use my practitioner arts and martial arts with the rest of my body," Lance muttered, oblivious to the pirates and sailors as he was immersed into his revelation.

"We surrender. Just let us live from him," a pirate said to a nearby sailor, the other pirates nodding in agreement.

"What do we do?" the sailor asked his captain as Lance looted the living, soulless body of the pirate captain.

"Ah shit," Lance said as he stored the flame inside the ring of the dead captain, realizing what he did as he heard the sailor. "I should have used a regular dragon. No one else had seen that type of dragon outside Pangu. The people below deck should not have seen anything. That solves that problem."

"What's going on?" a sailor asked as the bone mice scurried over the decks of both ships. The mice swarmed and at least two jumped and attached themselves to the chest of the sailors and pirates.

"Ah....so this is to me my fate," the captain of the sailors sighed as realization dawned in his eyes.

"What's going on? Let go of me," a sailor cried.

"We surrendered. I don't want to die," a pirate whimpered.

Lance's expression was indifferent as he snapped his fingers. Each of the bone mice positioned themselves where the heart would be and blew up. All the pirates and sailors on deck died as the bones of the mice minions became transparent and exploded into bursts of pure mana. There was no fire, just strong surges of mana destroying everything within the blast radius.

Lance's knees became weak and he struggled toward the mana cannons, storing them as well as the storage bags of the pirates. He already had a gun and did value it much at his current cultivation. As he managed to stumble across the planks and collapse onto the commercial ship, the pirates and sailors below the decks of both ships had arrived.

They paled at the devastation on both ships but noticed most of the bodies were from sword wounds. They guessed a magical beast had passed by and took some of them for lunch before fighting each other again. Mei had arrived from below the deck of the pirate ship as she chased some pirates, killing them before scurrying toward the pirate captain's cabin.

"We're being robbed. Back to the ships!" a pirate said as he saw Mei sprint up the stairs, ramming the side of the steering wheel to partially destroy it as she ran inside.

"Don't let them get away! They might bring more ships!" a sailor said. "Somebody find the captain too!"

"I thought he was fighting on deck?" another frowned before he was distracted by a pirate.

"Panther, come to me. I spent too much energy," Lance ordered through his mental link.

"I will be there with the Lingqi shortly, master," the panther answered at once.

"Die!" a pirate said shooting his gun at Lance but saw the crystallized spirit energy beam shatter against Lance's body. He paled as Lance was not harmed in the slightest.

"Impudent scum!" the panther roared, the pirate only hearing a great roar as the panther appeared like lightning. Its white teeth dug into the man's throat, the pirate gagging as he fell onto the ground due to the weight and force of the panther.

"Victory!" a sailor yelled and the sailors cheered as the sailor held the head of the pirate captain. None of them saw Mei pass by and the sailor in question did not know why the pirate captain just stayed on his knees the whole time the pirates fought.

"You did something," Mei said, her comment not a question as she had heard the roar and saw too much damage and not enough bodies.

"The mast is not damaged, much. We need to leave. I can sense mana fluctuations a few miles out. Well, my bone fish do. It seems beings made of mana are highly sensitive to it," Lance rasped, leaning on the panther as he got to his feet.

"Sailors, we need to flee. Let the ship be and set sail! There are more coming!" Mei shouted after a moment.

"What about the captain?" a woman asked as she appeared on deck. "Anyone see my husband?"

"Mana cannon got him. I'm so sorry," Lance rasped, acting pitiful as he covered his eyes with his palm. It looked like he was crying, and the woman fell to her knees in shock and grief.

"Barry, you're first mate. You're captain now. Orders, captain?" a burly man with wounds on his legs asked as a slightly shorter man stared back at him in shock.

"Someone get topside on that mast and use the magic telescope. Somebody get the compass. I need our bearings and the location of the suspected pirates. All sailors with strength of the second stage and above, I want you all on oars. The rest of you clean up the mess and toss the bodies overboard. We....need to lessen the load if pirates are truly on pursuit," the man said, his voice and confidence rising with each sentence. Sailors were prepared for this. Pirate attacks were uncommon, but deaths were not. The ship always had to be prepared for the loss of her captain.

"You heard the captain! Clean that mess and get on those oars!" the man's closest friend said, his voice moving the other sailors to action as they muttered apologies to their dead crew members and the previous captain's wife.

"They didn't have to die," Mei said as she, the panther, Lingqi, and Lance entered Lance's room.

"No, that was my fault. I was immersed in testing my theories and did not plan ahead. I created a scenario where I risked exposure of my identity if news ever reached Pangu. The identity of Guo Yang," Lance admitted. "You get the chest?"

"Take it," Mei said, tossing a small chest the size of a melon at Lance. "Can we escape those pirates?"

"We should be able to. We had ample enough warning. I released my bone fish minions as I cannot control them if they move a certain distance from me. However, they are far and even with a practitioner or mage on board; this ship has its own. It'll take a few hours. I need rest. I cannot do what I did a second time," Lance sighed as he stored the chest in his storage ring.

"So you admit you were wrong," Mei commented.

"I can kill even you just fine. My lava chains do not consume my own spirit energy or mana. I just cannot alter them beyond their normal length and mass without it," Lance snorted. "Admitting one's mistake is not something shameful. It is the act of pretending you did an action without shame, that is dishonorable. To admit even one mistake is better than none at all. Without acceptance, there can be no progression. Only stagnation. I am to enter the Realms of Immortals. The opinions of mortals, I really could care less."

"So that is your aim. It is no wonder, all your actions. I see it now. I understand. You have no attachments to this world. If you did, they are not many," Lingqi said.

"There is no power without sacrifice. In my doing so, I enjoy the world less than you and perceive it through different eyes," Lance said, the others silent as they left the panther and Lance alone to rest and recover his strength. The commercial ship quickly set sail away from the pirate ship as two others were verified heading in their direction.