Vanthelis stood silently amidst the shouting pirates, his expression unreadable. The salty air was thick with tension, the sun high above the chaotic docks. Behind him, Ishlar held his ground, blood dripping from the edge of his blade, his breathing steady but controlled.
They were surrounded.
Pirates brandished cutlasses, crude guns, and even rusted spears. All had witnessed the initial bloodshed—Vanthelis's merciless strike and the brutal counterattack that followed. But their fear was slowly hardening into rage. Numbers gave them courage.
Vanthelis didn't move.
Instead, his hand reached up slowly… and grasped the helm hanging from his belt.
It was time.
The Wraith Pact.
Fashioned from darkened steel and bone, forged with unknown magic and powered by the mere thought of Vanthelis—it pulsed faintly in his hand, as if alive. A glowing runes running from within its interior, and the aura it gives. It was no mere helm. It was a powerful item.
And now, it was his.
He pulled the helm over his head.
The world shifted.
A heavy pulse spread outward, a sign that the helm has been activated, an invisible but undeniable aura leaked from it. The moment it clicked into place, Vanthelis felt a surge of unnatural strength course through his veins.
A totem smaller that a size of bean in the forehead of the item but it got bigger and bigger until it was the size of a child, hovering from the air.
The Wraith Pact was active.
A buff aura spread across him and Ishlar, empowering their strikes, numbing their pain, and speeding their movement. A debuff rolled over the pirates, making their limbs feel like lead, their thoughts sluggish, and their attacks less sure. The bravest among them blinked in confusion, their strength subtly drained before the fight even began.
Vanthelis took a single step forward.
And then—he struck.
His blade, now infused with the Pact's power, moved with unnatural speed. The first pirate barely had time to raise his weapon before Vanthelis's sword sliced through his gut, severing flesh and steel alike. The man crumpled, blood spraying in an arc as Vanthelis spun and slashed again—cutting down another before the body of the first had even hit the ground.
Gunfire cracked.
Vanthelis tilted his head—just enough. The musket ball skimmed past his temple, shaving a few strands of black hair and carving a shallow line across his helm. Blood dripped from the graze, but it was minor—insignificant—thanks to the Pact's aura dulling the bullet's velocity.
He snarled.
His foot slammed against the dock, splinters flying. He launched forward, his body propelled by sheer will and strength. The pirate with the musket tried to back away—but Vanthelis closed the distance in an instant, driving his sword straight into the man's gut and lifting him off the ground before flinging him to the side like garbage.
Ishlar fought beside him, a flash of ghostly steel.
Where Vanthelis was rage, Ishlar was precision. His strikes were clean and deliberate. A slash across a neck. A parry followed by a thrust through a ribcage. His holy energy sparked at his fingertips—a faint residual echo from a past long buried.
Two pirates lunged at him simultaneously.
He ducked beneath the first blade, then drove his elbow into the attacker's stomach. As the second raised a knife, Ishlar grabbed his wrist and turned—dislocating the joint with a sickening pop—then used the man's own body as a shield to deflect another blow before finishing them both with a sweeping slash.
"Milord, left!" Ishlar called.
Vanthelis turned just in time—blocking a large pirate's axe with both hands. The man was easily over six feet tall, muscles bulging, veins popping. But it didn't matter.
Vanthelis pushed back.
With a roar, he drove his sword up beneath the pirate's jaw and out the top of his skull, then pulled it free with a wet sound.
The dock was soaked in blood.
Then it happened.
Crack.Crack-crack.
A strange pressure built in the air. Like static. Like something wrong.
Both Vanthelis and Ishlar turned toward the source.
BZZZZZT-KRAK-KOOOM!!
A sphere of electric energy, the size of a human torso, shot down from the cliffside above the dock and exploded near them in a burst of thunder and lightning.
Electric arcs slammed into both men.
Vanthelis grunted—his muscles spasming, smoke rising from his armor. The Pact dampened the damage, keeping the blast from outright killing him—but it hurt. Ishlar was thrown back, rolling across the blood-soaked dock, coughing, his body twitching from the residual current.
And then—the scream.
A small, brittle scream.
Vanthelis's eyes shot toward the sound.
The girl.
The child they had saved earlier—shackled, bruised, sobbing.
She had been too close to the thunder sphere.
Her tiny form lay sprawled on the dock now, unmoving. A small trail of blood leaked from her mouth. Her chest didn't rise.
Silence.
Vanthelis stood there, frozen. The helm trembled around his head. The world, so loud moments ago, suddenly felt dead quiet. Her face—twisted in fear, pain, helplessness—it mirrored every child he had failed. Every family slaughtered. Every scream he had heard in that burning memory of home.
"No…" he whispered.
He clenched his sword tighter.
Then, from the cliffside, a voice echoed—mocking, amused.
"Such fury for a useless rat, You meddlesome brat."
A tall man emerged from the roof of the taver. His arms were bare, wrapped in tattoos of storm and serpent. His fingers crackled with lightning, and his lips curled into a cruel smile. At his side, pirates began to rally again—those who had survived the initial slaughter, now reinforced by this storm-wielding warrior.
Ishlar stumbled back to his feet, charred and burnt, but still gripping his sword.
Vanthelis didn't look away from the dead girl.
His heart was burning again.
Not from the pain. Not from the lightning.
But from something far older, far deeper.
Hatred.
Wrath.
And beneath it all—a soul that would never be at peace again.
They were surrounded again.