"What was he thinking?" a Circle Warrior standing near Lumine asked with clear disdain as he watched Cassian get overwhelmed by the barrage of spells. "If he wanted to commit suicide like that, he should’ve just drowned himself..."

Many others shared the same thought. What Cassian had done was completely reckless.

"Captain Peter is strong enough to jump onto an enemy ship first," another warrior said. "He’s only First Circle. What did he think he was going to achieve by doing the same?"

Wanni and the others didn’t argue back. The men were right. More than anything, they were furious at Cassian—but at the same time, worried.

He had taken far too many direct hits.

And once the barrage finally ended, what remained was Cassian’s body—burned, torn open with holes through parts of him, shards of stone and ice still embedded in his flesh.

"He’s dead..." one of the mages charging the mana cannon beside Wanni said, shaking her head with a bit of pity. "Though he did manage to take a few of them with him..."

Wanni shook her head. "He won’t die that easily..." she said, though there wasn’t much confidence in her voice.

Still, she was right.

The enemy mages laughed after bringing Cassian down and started turning their attention toward the others, preparing to help finish off Captain Peter. The pirate ship had already begun shifting away from the other vessel, clearly planning to deal with Peter first before going after his ship afterward. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

But as the attackers turned away from what they thought was now a charred corpse, one of them had barely taken a single step before a sword pierced through the back of his head and came out through his eye.

Cassian followed the strike with another slash, taking yet another life.

"How is he still alive?" the mage who had declared him dead asked in shock.

Wanni smirked as the answer revealed itself on its own.

"His wounds are closing... he has a healing ability," she said.

Everyone stared in surprise, while a few Circle Warriors looked more amused than shocked.

"No wonder he threw himself out there like that..." one of them muttered.

Though the pirate ship had moved farther away from their own to keep Captain Peter from returning, many could still clearly see what was happening thanks to the clear night sky and the almost full moon overhead.

Everyone on the enemy ship realized Cassian had a healing ability—but they realized it too late.

The warrior who had kicked him earlier already had a sword buried through his chest, while another had her throat cut open, blood pouring out in streams even as she desperately tried to clutch the wound shut. Her eyes stayed wide on Cassian as she stumbled backward and collapsed.

Cassian’s red eyes glowed as pieces of charred skin peeled from his body. In the moonlight, he looked more like a demon than a human—only the horns were missing.

As he moved forward, he muttered, "Chaos Steps... Tangled paths..."

He weaved through the incoming spells like chains twisting between one another, his movements splitting and crossing unpredictably.

Technically, they were afterimages. After studying and practicing the technique over and over, Cassian had realized it all depended on speed. Right now, he could only create around four afterimages of himself with his current level.

But by making their paths overlap, twist, and intersect with one another, it became impossible to tell which one was real—like tangled chains spreading in every direction, tangling with each other.

The pirate mages panicked almost instantly.

"Which one is real?!"

Another volley of spells exploded across the deck—fire, shards of ice, compressed wind, even bolts of crackling lightning—but the red-eyed figures only scattered apart and crossed through one another again like broken reflections on water.

Then one of them suddenly became real.

Cassian burst through the middle of the barrage, sword flashing upward in a clean arc that split open a mage from hip to shoulder. Blood sprayed across the deck before the body even fully dropped.

A Circle Warrior roared and charged him from the side, axe raised high.

Cassian twisted low.

The axe missed by inches, smashing into the wooden deck hard enough to crack it apart. At the same moment, Cassian’s sword slid beneath the man’s arm and pierced straight through his ribs.

The warrior coughed blood.

Cassian kicked him off the blade and immediately ducked again as another spell passed over his head, hot enough to scorch strands of his hair.

"Tch... annoying bastards..." he muttered.

His wounds were still healing, but slower now. Burns crawled shut across his skin while shattered flesh stitched itself together under the moonlight.

And everyone could see it.

The pirates’ earlier confidence vanished.

"He’s a monster—!"

"No, kill him before he regenerates again!"

More spells formed around the remaining mages, but before they could release them, a massive pressure slammed down over the ship.

Captain Peter.

The middle-aged warrior crashed through the upper deck like a falling meteor, spear tearing apart both wood and bodies alike. The impact alone threw several pirates off their feet.

Peter grinned wildly, long black hair dancing in the ocean wind. "Oi, brat!" he shouted toward Cassian while blocking the pirate captain’s curved blade with his spear shaft. "You still alive?"

Cassian smirked, wiping blood from his mouth. "Barely..."

The pirate captain’s face darkened as he looked between the two of them.

Then the man’s domain exploded outward.

"What the fuck is that?" Cassian asked as the blue domain around the pirate captain seemed to come alive, flames spreading across the wooden ship while even the man’s sword burned with fire.

"That’s Domain Expansion, kid..." Peter said before adding, "Now get back a bit."

He shoved Cassian away slightly, and though confused at first, Cassian quickly found out why.

Peter’s own blue domain suddenly burst outward—but unlike the pirate captain’s flames, his was dark, like the deep sea itself, carrying an overwhelming pressure that felt as if it wanted to swallow and drown everything within it.

A thin layer of water wrapped around Peter’s body, his hair flowing with it as he shouted,

"Come on! Let’s see what’s stronger—your fire... or my desire to fill your lungs with water!"