Boom! Boom! Boom!
The ground shook, mountains crumbled, and a giant over a thousand meters tall sprinted across the Obisto lands, shrouded in gray mist and eternal night. The giant was chasing a rapidly moving golden rainbow ahead of him. Every step the giant took sent violent tremors through the earth, creating visible shockwaves. Any skeletons crawling out of the ground due to the calamity were reduced to rubble by the impact, and all undead with any sense of self-preservation fled desperately upon seeing this skeletal giant god.
"Little one, running away without even putting up a fight—how does that reflect the Titan and Golden Dragon bloodlines within you?" shouted Barbossa, who with each stride covered thousands of meters as he chased after the fleeing Muria. "Aren't you afraid of tarnishing the great reputation of your ancestors and getting scolded by your elders?"
"Are you stupid?" Muria, who had been unable to break through the space to escape, turned and cursed, "What kind of elder would demand their descendant, at the Legendary level, to fight someone seven ranks higher? This isn't a battle—it's suicide!"
Titans do indeed enjoy fighting above their level, but there's a limit based on bloodline and rank. At the Legendary level, fighting seven ranks above is simply too much, even for a Titan.
Facing a Legendary enemy seven ranks higher and choosing to fight instead of flee wouldn't be brave—it would be idiotic. There are no such fools among the Titans, and such behavior is certainly not encouraged.
Titans are a rare species. If they really had a tradition of fighting without regard to the opponent, they would have gone extinct long ago. In reality, the Titan legacy includes many secret techniques for escaping and saving one's life, ensuring the survival of young Titans.
"Stop running. I'll suppress my power to fight you. If you win, I'll let you go. If you lose, give back everything you stole from me," Barbossa tried to coax Muria into stopping. In his current state, he really couldn't catch Muria. It felt like he was trying to catch the wind or lightning, but that was exactly how Muria made him feel—swift as the wind, elusive as thunder.
"First, why don't you drop your current form?" Muria wasn't so easily fooled. Who would trust the words of an evil lich? He just wanted to get far away from Barbossa and escape the space-locking power emanating from him, so he could return to Synapse at his leisure.
"Just wait!" Barbossa wasn't about to listen to Muria. He had already figured out that the little one he was chasing was a cunning rascal, shameless to the core. Believing anything he said would only lead to being tricked, reduced to nothing but skeletal dust!
"I refuse to believe I can't stop you." Barbossa gritted his teeth and persisted. He wasn't just chasing Muria himself; he was also using a mental link to command his fleet to surround Muria.
After all, Muria's escape route was easy to predict. Whether he veered left or right, his ultimate goal was the floating Synapse. Barbossa already knew its location and just needed to deploy ghost ships along the route to intercept him.
"Do you think you're the only one with subordinates?" Muria, after blowing up yet another ghost ship blocking his way, realized that Barbossa had begun rallying his forces to encircle him. But Muria had long since summoned the giant army of Synapse, as well as the legends and liches he had subdued, to welcome him. It was now a battle of forces.
Barbossa's forces had been quite strong, but after Muria's raids, five of Barbossa's legendary subordinates had been suppressed, and many others were left crippled.
So, although Barbossa's ghost fleet was large, it was lacking in legends, making it relatively easy for the legends Muria had summoned to handle them two against one.
After a full day and night of intercepting and pursuing, Muria finally broke through the encirclement and saw Synapse close at hand.
"Hahaha," Muria laughed as he kicked through another ghost ship in his path and rushed into the protective barrier of Synapse, then turned to face Barbossa with a smug look.
"Captain of the undead, I'm home now. Thank you for 'escorting' me for so long, I really appreciate it." Muria stood at the threshold, watching as more ghost ships gathered around him, his face showing no fear. "Would you like to come in for a visit?"
Muria slightly stepped aside and made an inviting gesture toward his surroundings, a playful smile on his face. He was sure Barbossa wouldn't dare enter Synapse. Liches are notoriously cautious. Of course, even if Barbossa did dare, Muria wasn't worried—the Wind King Eagle had just been disturbed and was likely still awake.
"A bunch of useless fools," Barbossa, in his thousand-meter-tall skeletal form, glanced resentfully at his subordinates. If they had managed to stop Muria during the chase, he would have held the upper hand now. Although he couldn't kill Muria, he could have easily used the situation to demand the return of what Muria had stolen.
"Titan and Dragon child, let's have a proper talk!" Seeing Muria's inviting gesture, Barbossa sighed, relinquishing his most powerful form. His terrifying thousand-meter skeletal body collapsed and reformed into his pirate captain appearance.
"We have nothing to talk about," Muria refused without hesitation. "If you have no other business, please leave. The farther the better. Just seeing you irritates me. Let's meet again in five hundred years. I'll come find you then."
Hearing Muria say he would come looking for him in five hundred years, the soul flames in Barbossa's eye sockets flickered intensely. He knew he had been marked by the little one before him, but there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't strike him down.
Moreover, who could say what would happen five hundred years from now? This little one might well have reached the pinnacle of the Legendary level by then. If he came looking for trouble then, it would be a huge headache.
"Little one, the things you took from me are of no use to you. Return them to me, and I can offer you ample compensation," Barbossa tried to tempt him. With thousands of years of experience as a lich, he knew how to deal with a dragon. As for easing Muria's hostility, although Muria had ransacked his lair, the truly valuable items were still on him, and many things simply couldn't be taken.
"Who says they're useless to me? Every ghost ship is highly useful," Muria replied confidently.
"But you're a Titan of the lawful alignment and a symbol of goodness as a Golden Dragon. How can you use ghost ships?" Barbossa asked, feigning disappointment.
"Why can't I use them? They're great as cannon fodder and meat shields. Don't you think so? Your ghost ships are especially resilient. Their recovery ability is unparalleled," Muria said.
Hearing this, Barbossa knew he wasn't getting his ghost ships back. But the ships weren't the most important thing—his lair was.
"Fine, you can keep the ghost ships, but return my lair. It's of no use to you," Barbossa pleaded.
"No," Muria refused flatly.
"It's not as valuable as you think. In your hands, it's just a useless piece of junk. Besides, you haven't even cracked the defensive formations I set up there, have you? So give it back to me, and I'll compensate you with unimaginable resources," Barbossa continued, trying to persuade him.
"If it's not that valuable, then why do you want it back so badly?" Muria wasn't about to be swayed by a few simple words. But Barbossa was right—the progress in breaking the lair's formations had been slow, even for Synapse. Muria was stumped.
"I'll be honest with you. What you took is a ghost shipyard, complete with a full ghost ship production line. But you need specific knowledge to operate it, and you don't have that. Moreover, you lack the raw materials needed to build ghost ships—only I have them. In your hands, the shipyard is just a pile of scrap metal, but in mine, it's something else entirely."
"If that's the case, then I definitely can't return it. Giving you the ghost shipyard would only allow you to cause more harm to the world," Muria said righteously, refusing again.
"I'm just trying to prevent my unique skills from spreading. Besides, except for the last time the council issued a command and the recent disaster outbreak, have you ever seen me on the surface? Usually, I'm in the undead dungeons suppressing various undead. If you don't believe me, you can ask around—I've killed more undead than there are humans."
Barbossa struggled to contain his urge to strike. He didn't believe Muria's talk of justice; he was sure this little one was just a hypocrite.
"Just go. We have nothing to trade!"
Barbossa was furious at being refused again, but after a glance at the giants and dragons behind Muria, he quickly understood.
"I have the coordinates of a world rich in mineral veins—a world made entirely of various metal ores. Give me the shipyard, and I'll give you this world."
A tempting voice whispered in Muria's ear, but this time, no one else heard it. Along with the soul voice came some vague information about a world, its size, and a resource survey. The sight of it all made Muria's eyes gleam.
"Not enough. Far from enough. I'll need at least ten of those worlds to even consider it
. Otherwise, forget about getting your shipyard back," Muria, well aware of negotiation tactics, replied boldly.
"Don't even think about it! I don't have that many resource worlds. Do you think such worlds are common in our cluster?" Barbossa retorted angrily.
"I think you have quite a few," Muria replied.
_________________________
[Check out my Patreon for +200 additional chapters in all my fanfics! $5 for all!!]
[w w w . p a t r e o n .com / INNIT]
[+50 PowerStones = +1 Chapter] [+5 Reviews = +1 Chapter]