Damir Island lay with Puning Harbor of Southville County to its west, and Bansi Island to its southeast. The famous Bansi Harbor was located on that island.
Hastur stood at the bow of the ship, observing the movements on the sea with his naked eye. It was currently the time when night shrouded everything. The sea was like a mass of black water, and they were sharks weaving through that black water.
When a shark smelled the scent of prey, it would open its ferocious maw.
"Do you like the sea?" Hastur suddenly spoke. The two adjutants standing beside him were both stunned for a moment.
One of them gave a dry laugh and said, "What's there to like or dislike? I remember when I first returned from a long voyage by ship, I nearly developed a fear of the ocean and even had nightmares for some time."
The other adjutant said, "I like the sea because it always accepts every living being that arrives here. Whether filthy, poor, or dead, the sea will give it a place to rest."
Hastur gave a slight nod and said nothing more.
As the ships gradually approached the waters near Damir Island, they encountered the pirate group's patrol boats.
The guiding lights on the warships were far too dazzling in such a dark night. Once the distance closed, it was only natural that they would be discovered.
But for the pirates entrenched on Damir Island, such lights were golden rays symbolizing wealth.
There would always be merchant ships that accidentally strayed into these nearby waters at night and became their prey.
The two patrol boats quickly called for their captain, saying that a fat sheep had delivered itself to their door.
As for the possibility that those lights belonged to naval warships?
That joke was not very funny. The pirates in the area had already found it difficult to gain any further sense of superiority from mocking the incompetence of Southville County's navy.
After all, one could not keep comparing oneself to a pile of rotten mud.
Hastur ordered the large lamps on the other warships to be temporarily turned off, leaving only the lights on the two warships leading the way.
When roughly eight pirate ships came one after another under the cover of darkness, intending to tear apart their prey, the two leading warships stopped in place and waited quietly for them to deliver themselves to the door.
Who was the hunter and who was the prey would only be known once the gunshots rang out.
Most ordinary pirates' ships were modified from common fishing boats. Being able to carry four or five cannons already counted as decent firepower.
Only those large-scale pirate groups possessed warships capable of contending with naval vessels.
Therefore, when they hunted merchant ships, they would usually fire a few cannon shots first, striking the waters near the merchant ship to intimidate it.
Unless necessary, they would not directly attack the merchant ship itself, to avoid capsizing it, setting it ablaze, and damaging the cargo on board.
Grappling hooks were a somewhat ancient weapon. They could help pirate ships secure merchant ships. First, this prevented the merchant ship from throwing them off with its speed. Second, it allowed the pirates to climb along the ropes set up by the hooks and board the merchant ship to plunder it.
This was the usual method of raiding adopted by ordinary pirates.
The first group of pirate visitors Hastur and the others encountered tonight intended to use precisely this method.
The navy on the ships had long since followed their usual drill procedures, forming ranks with guns in hand and standing guard at their combat posts.
They were only waiting for the sound of a gunshot.
After roughly a few minutes, several rounds of orderly gunfire rang out.
The two adjutants beside Hastur had already led men to capture the captain of this pirate group and forced him to reveal the situation on Damir Island.
Then, that captain was hanged on the gallows together with the other pirates.
Whether they were pirates who laid down their weapons and surrendered, or pirates who resisted stubbornly, their destination was the gallows.
Hastur did not have the time, nor the intention, to capture the pirates.
Half an hour later, the warships had already arrived at Damir Island.
"Fire!"
As the command fell, orderly artillery fire showed no partiality, tending to every inch of land across Damir Island.
Hastur narrowed his eyes, gazing at the shocking scene of artillery fire sweeping the ground.
This island was not very large. There was only this one harbor for entering and leaving.
When the sound of cannon fire echoed through Damir Island's harbor, the pirates who were still half-asleep did not immediately think that the navy had attacked. Their first reaction was: which pirate groups had started fighting among themselves again?
It was not until shells landed near the places where they lived that they were so frightened they hurriedly climbed out of bed, cursing as they did, "Which brainless bastard, which pig son without a brain, is actually firing cannons at the residential area!"
"When you lot are holding your women at night and have no place to sleep, I'll definitely drag a whole crowd over to watch!"
They called it a residential area, but it was really just rows of wooden houses, most of them only one story, with a small portion built up to two.
The houses were crookedly built, not at all pleasing to the eye. Under the baptism of cannon fire, the wood still met its destined fate of burning.
After more than a dozen rounds of bombardment, when the cannon barrels were hot enough to scald a man to death, Hastur finally ordered the navy on the ships to form ranks and land.
Any pirate who showed his head was not to be spared.
Only when the repeated gunshots took the pirates' lives did they see the men in uniform naval attire, and died with stunned looks in their eyes.
Here, not a single pirate had imagined that the navy of Southville County would actually take advantage of the night to catch them off guard.
Hastur stood at the bow, watching nearly 800 naval soldiers sweep through the area like a carpet, clearing away every trace of the pirates' presence.
When they discovered a few Beyonders who wanted to escape under cover of night, or put up resistance, the gardener and the chef who had gone to sea with Hastur, after receiving his nod of approval, took up their large shears and boning knife and joined the battlefield as well.
Even if the two of them had not acted, those few Sequence 9 and Sequence 8 Beyonders were still very fragile before firearms. A shot to the head, or to the heart, could just as easily take their lives.
Even a powerful Shepherd like Mr. A would not choose to take guns and cannons head-on. Bullets might not cause fatal wounds, but if the body were constantly bombarded by cannon fire, its recovery speed would fall far behind the speed of destruction.
Of course, the most formidable part of such powerful Beyonders was not whether their bodies could withstand a baptism of artillery fire, but that they possessed a high degree of mobility.
That was the true foundation of their powerful threat.
The gunfire echoing through the night sky continued until the sun rose the next day.
Aside from a few clever pirates who took advantage of the chaos to escape while clutching empty oak barrels, the rest of Damir Island's pirates were all here.
Severed limbs, entrails, and heads lay scattered across the ground, a riot of colors churned together like the chaotic contents of a boiling hotpot. The heavy stench of blood became even more obvious as the sun rose, making people feel nauseous and want to vomit.
The navy who, just last night, had descended and swept through the pirates now had at least half their number vomiting, while another third had already thrown up. Only a small portion remained pale-faced, forcing themselves to stay calm.
There was no helping it. The power of artillery was far beyond what firearms could compare to. Under its rampage, not many complete corpses could be left behind.
Some pirates who had surrendered early were also shaken by this bloody scene.
Among those corpses were many people who had still been drinking and amusing themselves with them just last night. Now, they had completely become cold corpses, and some could not even keep their bodies intact.
In order to survive, they knelt on the ground and kept begging Hastur, the leader, for mercy. All kinds of pleas poured out.
In response, Hastur said calmly, "Take them onto the ships."
The pirates, thinking they had been lucky enough to pick up their lives again, were moved to tears with gratitude. Some even had tears flowing down their faces, weeping from joy.
When they boarded the ships and saw the pirate corpses hanging there one after another, panic and terror began to spread.
But under the aim of row after row of dark gun barrels, even as they kept cursing, crying, and begging for mercy, in the end, all of them became corpses hanging from ropes.
It was not that Hastur wanted to imitate the former Grand Duke of Southville. It was just that, at a time like this, the increasingly rampant pirates needed to be given a small shock, and it could also raise morale and confidence.
No matter how formidable pirates were, they still had one head and two arms. As long as there was a gun in hand, everyone was equal under one shot.
With the pirates on Damir Island cleared out, Hastur naturally had the wealth they had usually plundered taken back as spoils of war.
During this time, the gardener, having washed his large shears clean, came to find Hastur and said he had caught the captain of the Dark Hand Pirate Gang, a Sequence 7 Navigator.
How else should he be dealt with?
He was likewise hung on the gallows, and his corpse was placed at the very front. A Sequence 7 pirate captain deserved at least a bit of presence.
...
Before the ships had even reached Puning Harbor, the news that the pirates entrenched on Damir Island had been completely wiped out had already spread.
Many people came to the harbor, craning their necks in anticipation as they waited for the navy's return.
Some whose families had relatives in the navy straightened their backs and spoke in loud voices, explaining to those who did not know just how different the current Puning Harbor navy was, from the navy layoffs to the expansion in recruitment, then on to daily training.
It greatly satisfied many people's desire to watch the excitement.
Klein was also one of the onlookers. He had completely failed to expect things to unfold like this.
He had been preparing to inform Count Hastur Campbell about the pirate gang, but unexpectedly, the other party had already taken the first step and wiped out the pirates on Damir Island.
He did not know whether the Dark Hand Pirate Gang mentioned by Mr. Hanged Man had also been wiped out.
When the afterglow of the setting sun began to spill across the sea, the neatly arranged fleet finally appeared in everyone's field of vision.
Only after the fleet drew closer did they discover that what was also neatly arranged were the pirate corpses hanging from ropes.