Chapter 1: Dragging the Keel, Walking the Plank

Pain!

An indescribable pain!

Byron felt as though an iron spike had pierced through his chest—cold, weak, as if something precious was rapidly draining away from the gaping hole.

Every nerve in his body convulsed violently, screaming in unbearable agony.

Yet, he couldn't wake up, trapped in a long, nightmarish dream.

In that dream, there were two versions of himself, living two entirely different lives.

The first version was an orphan, constrained by reality but harboring a dream to travel the world.

Unfortunately, just a few years into his career, before he could save enough for his journey, he was struck by a rare disease—ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis)!

Starting from his upper limbs, he gradually lost all bodily functions. Within a few short years, he could no longer move, speak, swallow, or even breathe on his own.

Until his body became a prison for his soul, and he died alone, helpless, and despairing.

The second version, though he lost his mother at birth, had a strict yet loving father and a harmonious extended family.

A wise and kind uncle, albeit plagued by intermittent mental illness;

A beautiful and gentle aunt who treated him like her own son;

A cousin who often took him hunting, practicing swordsmanship, horsemanship, and navigation; a childhood sweetheart who spent her days chasing chickens and dogs, carefree and unambitious;

And many other united and friendly family members; loyal vassals, retainers, and guardian knights...

What was frustrating was that these two lives in the dream were like looking through thick frosted glass—blurry from the start.

Like viewing flowers through a fog, Byron couldn't recall any details no matter how hard he tried.

He only vaguely remembered that he had suffered a severe injury in a recent major upheaval.

The vast "memory palace" that constituted his personality in his mind had lost a crucial piece, causing a chain reaction of collapse.

This unexpectedly exposed the first life, which had always served as the foundation, helping him barely keep the "palace" from collapsing, but also plunging him into complete chaos.

Now, he was like a small boat that had lost its anchor, drifting aimlessly in the fragmented currents of memory, utterly disoriented.

Apart from deeply ingrained instincts and common sense, even his self-awareness was beginning to blur.

After what felt like an eternity, only one vivid image remained in Byron's mind:

On a stormy night.

Beneath his feet was a colossal ship, its size comparable to a mountain, with a blue dragon figurehead at the bow.

His father in this life was speaking to him with a look of urgency, but Byron could only see his lips moving, unable to hear a single word.

Then, the icy, deep seawater engulfed everything...

Byron instinctively felt that this might be the key to the upheaval.

But the harder he tried to grasp it, the faster these memories slipped away.

"Who am I? What happened on that stormy night? Where did the rest of my family go?..."

Just then.

Splash!

A bucket of cold seawater was thrown onto his face, jolting him awake from the nightmare.

Unnoticed by him, the moment he opened his eyes, a faint glimmer of light flashed in his right eye, as blue as the sea.

Slowly raising his head, Byron was shocked to find himself, along with a group of drenched "drowned rats," bound hand and foot with ropes.

He was lying in a very awkward position on the deck of a wooden sailing ship!

Several ragged, menacing-looking sailors stood over him.

The leader was a burly man, two meters tall, with a sailor's cutlass and a flintlock pistol at his waist, exuding an aura of cold-blooded cruelty.

He took a swig from a bottle of rum and said impatiently:

"Don't lie there playing dead, you swine.

The captain's pets don't like to eat corpses that don't move. Get up, don't make trouble for us."

Hearing this, Byron, who was crouched among the crowd, felt his heart sink as he subtly scanned his surroundings.

The half-height bulwarks bore fresh marks from axes and bullets, and the open deck was lined with golden bronze cannons still reeking of gunpowder.

The gaps between the planks were stained with uncleaned, filthy blood...

Everywhere he looked, ragged but robust sailors were busy re-tying broken rigging, repairing the ship's battle-damaged hull, or tending to the wounded.

And at the top of the mast, a black flag with a white skull riding a shark fluttered high in the wind.

Without a doubt, this was a pirate ship that had just emerged from a brutal battle.

No more than a nautical mile astern, shrouded in a milky white mist, a battered merchant ship was burning fiercely as it sank into the sea.

It seemed that after a valiant counterattack against the pirate ship, it had still met its fate of being plundered and slaughtered.

The blood-red flag hoisted on the pirate ship's mast confirmed this.

It was the mark of a massacre—no survivors!

In theory, to deter any merchant ships that dared to resist, this bloody execution would be carried out without exception!

Combined with the pirate leader's words, Byron's heart skipped a beat as he realized the dire situation.

"I've been captured by pirates? And they're going to feed me to some kind of pet?"

The surviving merchant sailors around him, most of whom were seasoned seafarers, were even more acutely aware of the danger.

They knew all too well how cruel and vicious this pirate crew, known as the ​Man-Eating Shark, was in the North Sea.

Despite their bloody wounds, they immediately began to plead for mercy:

"Mr. 'Bone-Crusher,' it was the captain who ordered the resistance. We've already surrendered. Please, don't kill us!"

"Spare me! I'm the gunner of the Pelican. I'm a skilled crewman. I'm willing to join the Man-Eating Shark!"

"..."

The leader of the pirates, also the first mate of this ship, "Bone-Crusher" Miles, remained unmoved.

He took another swig of rum stolen from the merchant ship and gave a chilling, sinister smile:

"Unfortunately for you.

Apart from the cook, who supposedly served a noble and earned a chance to prove his worth by stabbing your captain in the back,

None of you are worthy of the captain's mercy, the great ​Blood-Eye.

Enough talk. Those little ones must be getting impatient. Send them down!"

With a wave of his hand, a group of ferocious pirates immediately stepped forward and dragged the terrified prisoners to their feet.

Having been mercilessly sentenced to death, many of the sailors broke down.

"You sea maggots, and that treacherous turncoat, you'll all meet a bad end!"

"I pray that the legendary ghost ship takes my soul, and the spirits of the sea will one day avenge the living!

The gods will not forgive you!"

"..."

Some cursed, others invoked divine retribution, while a few hurriedly prayed to their gods.

An old sailor walking beside Byron, his teeth chattering, muttered:

"Almighty Creator! We shouldn't have listened to the captain's orders and set sail at this time.

What does the throne war of the Kingdom of Hastings have to do with us lowly sailors?

Even if the Red Rose Lancaster family loses, our Pelican Guild is just a vassal of their vassal.

With Your great power, the White Rose York family, who has now taken the throne, surely won't harm us..."

Byron, who had been struggling to piece together the situation, finally began to understand the sequence of events from the sailors' desperate outbursts.

This seemingly ordinary act of piracy had taken place in the North Sea, near the coast of the Old World.

The nearby island nation of Hastings had been embroiled in a thirty-year war of succession between two great families, symbolized by the Red and White Roses.

Recently, these two noble houses, both with claims to the throne, had once again clashed, along with their vassals, on land and sea, leaving a trail of bloodshed.

Five days ago, in the dead of night, a rare and violent storm had struck the battlefield of their naval conflict—the southernmost part of the North Sea, the Strait of Dover.

The war of succession between the White and Red Roses had thus been decisively settled.

The Red Rose Lancaster family, who had held the throne of Hastings, had all their male members vanish in the storm!

Even the former King Henry VI's flagship, the ​Blue Dragon King, had sunk into the sea.

The various nobles and merchants who had been aligned with the Lancasters, fearing retribution from the new king, had fled in droves.

Some escaped to other countries along the North Sea coast, while others headed straight for the burgeoning overseas colonies.

The merchant ship ​Pelican, carrying part of the estate of a Lancaster loyalist, Lord Crawford, had set sail from Hastings two days ago.

Its destination was the southern colony of the Bantan Islands.

But here, it had unexpectedly encountered the ​Man-Eating Shark, and this ruthless band of pirates had seized it, abruptly ending its journey of escape.

As for Byron himself, he had been fished out of the sea by the ​Pelican as it passed through the outer waters of the battlefield—the Strait of Dover.

He was a "shipwrecked" man, and no one, including the now-deceased captain, knew his identity.

Now, he found himself, along with the crew of the ​Pelican, captured by pirates.

"Red and White Roses, Blue Dragon King, Lancaster..."

As these words echoed in his ears, Byron's eyes gradually lost focus.

The chaotic, drifting memories in his mind seemed to find an anchor in these terms.

Faces, some clear, some blurred, began to surface in his mind.

Especially vivid was a burning Red Rose emblem amidst a sea of blood and fire.

Warmth, longing, love, regret... a flood of intense emotions surged within him, making his heart ache.

"Ah—!"

A piercing scream suddenly rang in his ears.

Byron shuddered and snapped back to reality.

Looking up, he saw that the bloody execution on the pirate ship had begun!

On the forecastle of the pirate ship, a group of burly, fierce pirates were dragging a sturdy rope from the starboard to the port side.

A shirtless sailor was being dragged through the water, beneath the keel covered in sharp barnacles, and then hauled up on the other side.

The process was akin to being flayed alive, leaving countless deep, bloody wounds all over his body.

The sailor had barely let out a scream before he was dragged back under the water to the other side.

After a few rounds of this, his body was torn to shreds, barely recognizable as human, and the water near the bow was stained a deep red.

This was one of the most feared punishments at sea—keelhauling!

Even more horrifying was that, as if summoned by the scent of blood, a swarm of black shark fins, sharp as blades, rose from the sea!

They cut through the water, leaving white trails, and in the blink of an eye, they swarmed around the ship.

These were clearly the pets that First Mate Miles had mentioned, belonging to the captain of the ​Man-Eating Shark.

At the same time, a long plank was extended from the ship's side.

A group of pirates, brandishing cutlasses, herded several bound merchant sailors to the end of the plank.

They didn't forget to slash the sailors' bodies, leaving bloody gashes.

Whether they prayed or cursed, the sailors eventually stepped off the plank, screaming as they plunged into the churning waves.

After a bloody frenzy, they all disappeared beneath the surface.

Seeing their companions one by one devoured by sharks, despair spread among the remaining sailors.

The helplessness of waiting for their own execution was enough to drive anyone mad.

The more experienced sailors realized that these pirates weren't just executing them—they were conducting an extremely cruel blood ritual!

"Compared to that rubber boy playing pirates, this is the true face of piracy!"

Standing at the back of the group, Byron, his face pale, muttered something that baffled both the others and himself.

Then, he was roughly pushed onto the narrow plank.

Just inches below his feet were the blood-stained waves and dozens of gaping, razor-toothed maws!

The pungent smell of blood made Byron's scalp tingle.

If nothing unexpected happened, he would likely never have the chance to recover his memories or uncover the lost truth.