Chapter 672 - 559: The Sudden Crimson

Chapter 672: Chapter 559: The Sudden Crimson

"A... a child?"

Hearing Bronson’s near-shouted confession, the thrill Roland felt from reuniting with his old friend came to a halt, instantly replaced by sheer astonishment.

He stared, a rare sight, his gaze darting back and forth between Bronson’s face, etched with embarrassment and anxiety, and the Pirate leader battling a powerful Mage out on the sea. For a moment, he was at a loss for words.

Marriage, funerals, having children—in Roland’s eyes, these were just ordinary parts of life.

But no matter how far he stretched the bounds of his imagination, he could not immediately connect the erudite scholar before him—a man once engrossed in ancient texts, whose every word and action carried the refined and gentle air of academia—with the Pirate leader who commanded the storms atop raging waves, ruling a swath of the sea with her Curved Saber and an iron fist.

It was just...

Too far beyond imagination.

It was as if two completely different, even mutually exclusive, life paths had been forcibly twisted together by some absurd and powerful force.

A scholar and a Pirate, scrolls and a blade, a quiet study and the roaring sea...

The shock of this combination was even harder for Roland to digest than Bronson’s currently somewhat paunchy figure.

Bronson saw the undisguised astonishment on Roland’s face and realized just how shocking his words had been.

The blush hadn’t faded from his face, but driven by his urgent worry for Mara’s safety, he cast aside his embarrassment and explained in a rush.

"Listen, Roland, it’s not what you think! I... When I first washed up here, I was at death’s door. It was Mara and her people who saved me from a pack of predatory Fishmen!"

"She... she does lead the ’Serrated Anchor,’ and they have a big name in these waters, but she and her crew are nothing like the unprincipled villains of the rumors who burn, kill, and plunder!"

He struggled to organize his words, trying to reverse any prejudice Roland might have in the shortest time possible.

"The situation in the waters of the Broken Star Sea and the Split Scale Islands is complicated. There are various factions vying for power, and there are also threats from the Deep Sea."

"The ’Serrated Anchor’ is more like a... a community that maintains Order. They protect merchant ships from real Pirates, mediate disputes between islands, and even clear out sea monsters that endanger the shipping lanes!"

"Mara... she may be tough and direct, but she has her principles and her limits. She maintains the fragile balance that so many people in these waters depend on to survive!"

Bronson’s voice trembled with emotion, but his eyes were sincere.

"At first, it was just gratitude and her taking me in. But over time, I saw the responsibilities she carried, her courage when facing storms and enemies, and... and that deep, unspoken sense of duty she has for this sea and the people who rely on her."

"We... we just slowly grew close. This child... was an accident, but it was also our mutual decision."

He looked out at the sea again. The battle there seemed to have grown even more perilous. Mara’s figure staggered after a violent clash of Energy.

Bronson’s voice was laced with desperate pleading.

"Roland, please! Nothing can happen to her right now! For her sake, and for... for the child’s!"

Just then, Holland strode over, glancing into the distance.

Ellis was using ropes shimmering with an Arcane luster and a few levitating Rune Stones to firmly bind the two incapacitated Tower Mages in a corner, standing guard vigilantly beside them.

"Those two gray-robed ’Master Mages’ have been dealt with for now."

Holland reported, then his gaze fell on the flushed, emotional Bronson. He scratched his head, curious.

"Is this another acquaintance of yours, Rudolph?"

"Rudolph?"

Hearing the name, Bronson instinctively looked at Roland, blinking in confusion.

Roland gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, his expression calm.

The rapport they’d built over many years allowed Bronson to understand instantly.

Roland was using an alias.

So, despite the countless questions in his mind, he immediately suppressed the urge to speak out. He just gave Holland a slightly stiff nod, tacitly confirming the "acquaintance" claim.

Holland clearly didn’t pay much mind to the brief exchange of glances between the two. His attention was drawn more to the increasingly heart-pounding battle on the sea.

He tilted his head for a look. The clashes of lightning and raging waves were growing more intense. The turbulent Energy was even beginning to affect the nearby waters and the edge of the docks, kicking up gales that reeked of salt, brine, and something burning.

"Tsk tsk tsk!"

Holland clicked his tongue, his expression turning practical.

"I say, boss... Rudolph, looks like those two up there won’t be settling things anytime soon, but the commotion is getting scarier by the second."

"Shouldn’t we take this... uh, friend of yours, and those two ’treasures’ Ellis caught, and get out of here first? Who knows what this place will look like after they’re done blasting it to bits."

Hearing Holland suggest a retreat, Bronson’s heart tightened, the plea in his eyes practically overflowing.

Roland gently patted his shoulder, giving him a reassuring look, then turned to Holland.

"Holland, you and Ellis keep a proper watch on the two prisoners. Then take Mr. Bronson somewhere safe and protect him."

Holland nodded immediately, then followed up.

"Understood. What about you?"

Roland’s gaze shifted to the apocalyptic scene of the battle on the sea—where storm clouds, raging waves, and violent Energy clashed and intertwined—as he answered calmly.

"With a ’party’ this lively, it would be a shame not to join in."

As soon as Holland heard this, his brow furrowed tightly. He shot a quick glance at the anxious Bronson beside them.

Although he’d been busy subduing the Mages and hadn’t overheard their specific conversation, it was clear that Roland’s decision to intervene in the battle between those two monsters was directly related to this slightly chubby man.

As for trying to talk him out of it...

Though they hadn’t known each other for very long, Holland had already come to deeply understand Roland’s decisive style of action and the absolute confidence he had in his own judgment.

So, after hesitating for less than two seconds, he spoke resolutely.

"I’ll go with you. There’s strength in numbers when dealing with guys like that..."

But Roland shook his head, cutting off his suggestion.

"A frontal assault is not a wise way to deal with a Mage of this caliber. The key is a surprise attack that hits its mark in one blow. The more people there are, the more commotion we’ll make, and the lower our chances of success."

Holland opened his mouth, but seeing the calm light in Roland’s eyes, he ultimately swallowed his words of protest and nodded heavily.

"I understand. Don’t worry, leave Mr. Bronson and those two ’treasures’ to me. Nothing will happen to them."

Roland gave a slight nod and said no more.

The next moment, he pushed off from his feet, and the solid ground seemed to dip slightly.

There was no earth-shattering roar, no brilliant Residual Shadow.

His figure, like a pencil line erased from a drawing, suddenly blurred and faded from Holland and Bronson’s view.

In the blink of an eye, he vanished completely, leaving behind only a nearly imperceptible disturbance in the air.

* * *

High above the sea, the human Mage hovered beneath the turbulent storm clouds.

His pale blue eyes were like a frozen lake, reflecting the stubbornly resisting figure among the waves below.

The battle, up to this point, had proceeded almost entirely according to his calculations and control.

Just as the intelligence suggested, this female leader of the "Serrated Anchor" was a Storm Lord deeply blessed by Ambroise. Her connection to the sea was astounding.

Her seemingly endless Power, drawn from the entire sea, had even forced him to get slightly serious.

But that was all it was.

’The subtlety of Arcane Magic lies in understanding, analyzing, and ultimately dominating the Rules, not in blindly relying on some primitive natural affinity.’

The human Mage calmly cast one precise and efficient spell after another, constantly testing and draining the limits of his opponent’s Power.

Frost Chains wrapped around giant waves, a Force Field Wall split the ocean currents, and Arcane Missiles harassed her defensive nodes like a swarm of bees. He would even occasionally summon small-scale Thunderbolts, forcing her to constantly channel Divine Power to block or evade.

He could clearly perceive a subtle stagnation beginning to appear in the flow of her Power.

At first, he thought it was the natural exhaustion from continuously using Divine Power at high intensity. But soon, with a Great Mage’s keen Perception of life and Energy flow, he caught a trace of an unusual fluctuation.

It wasn’t simple fatigue. It was more like some kind of internal, continuous drain—a source of weakness existing within her body.

In another violent exchange, Mara swung her Curved Saber to summon a tidal wave, attempting to disperse an encroaching Frost Nova.

The collision of Power triggered an explosion, filling the air with mist.

In that instant, the human Mage caught the momentary pallor on her face, as well as an extremely faint detail that his Perception magnified infinitely.

Her hand had instinctively, and for the briefest of moments, brushed against her lower abdomen in a protective gesture, before it was immediately suppressed by her forced will to fight.

Combined with the abnormal pattern of her Power’s decline, a conclusion formed automatically in the human Mage’s mind like a cold formula.

’She’s pregnant?’

This discovery caused a minuscule, almost absurd ripple in the placid well of his mind.

It wasn’t sympathy or pity, but a pure, clinical displeasure—the kind a researcher feels when an unexpected variable appears in an observed subject—and a deeper, indifferent disdain rooted in his philosophy.

’The reproductive instinct of mortal life... to think it would become such a fatal hindrance and opening at a time like this.’

’Diverting precious Energy and life essence to a new, unformed life instead of focusing on immediate survival and victory... What an incomprehensibly inefficient choice. The blessing of Ambroise’s Divine Power can’t offset the primitive vulnerability of a body of flesh and blood.’

This discovery, far from making him go easy on her, instead prompted him to adjust his tactics.

He began to cast powerful area-of-effect suppression and mental interference spells more frequently, forcing her to expend even more energy on defense and exacerbating her internal burden.

At the same time, he secretly began preparing a complex Compound Spell Model: the Ring of Dissociation.

It was a Sixth Ring Arcane Magic that could weaken the fundamental structure of matter and Energy, causing a chain reaction of collapse.

He needed a little more time to complete the final adjustments to its configuration, but victory was already in sight.

Below, Mara clearly sensed the sudden increase in pressure and her own flagging strength. She let out an unyielding roar, trying to gather her last reserves of Power to unleash a counter-attacking tsunami.

But in the human Mage’s eyes, this was nothing more than the last struggle of a cornered beast.

’Now.’

A flicker of absolute calm passed through the human Mage’s eyes.

Between his raised hands, a complex, dazzling halo composed of countless tiny geometric shapes and shining Runes had already taken form. It emanated a terrifying fluctuation that caused the very space around it to twist slightly.

He then locked onto Mara’s core Energy node.

In a single moment, the spell would be released, sufficient to shatter her connection with the sea and cripple her to the core.

However, in the thousandth of a second before his Spiritual Power was about to trigger the spell’s release...

A "disturbance"—so subtle it was almost nonexistent, yet utterly out of place amidst the surrounding maelstrom of violent Energy—was suddenly caught by his superhuman combat instincts, like a speck of dust landing on a perfectly smooth mirror.

It wasn’t a magical fluctuation, not a turbulence of the Elements, not even the ordinary disturbance of air currents caused by a living being moving at high speed.

It was... a sudden intrusion of a "presence" that was far more restrained, more condensed, and possessed a clear sense of purpose.

Its trajectory was aimed directly at the opening in his flank defenses, which were currently weakened by his Concentration on Casting.

Danger!

An unprecedented warning signal stabbed into the core of the human Mage’s consciousness like an Ice Cone!

His pupils contracted abruptly. Reflected in his pale blue eyes was a color that was the complete opposite of the sea’s dark, cerulean blue...

The color of scarlet.