"Die, you filthy bastard!" Lady Gemrose shouted as she pulled the trigger.

  A hail of enchanted lead rained down on the pirate captain. He evaded. Dancing through the bullets. In movements that seemed so fluid and ethereal. But the sheer volume of fire forced him to stay on the defensive.

  Big Boss Lodegrey used the chance. He charged in. As the bullet barrage stopped, his piston-arms struck with rhythmic clanks. Every punch he threw carried the force of an industrial press.

  The undead captain deflected those attacks and was about to counter attack. But Jack's war hammer swing stopped him. Jack had also rejoined the battle.

  The three of them engaged the captain in a desperate, three-on-one struggle. Jack in his rakshasa form. Big Boss Lodegrey in his bulky steamrune armor. And Lady Gemrose in her flying steamrune armor.

  All three peak-level enhanced transcendent combatants against one single illuminated transcendent being. And they weren't exactly... winning.

  It was not easy. It was a bitter, grinding fight. The undead pirate captain was faster, stronger, and more skilled. He crushed Big Boss Lodegrey's shoulder-plate with a single palm stab. He broke Jack's ribs with a simple kick. And he nearly tore one of Lady Gemrose's wings off with a ranged palm wave.

  But it was still three against one. Or four... if Rune could be counted.

  The fairy, now in the form of a tiny dragon, had fearlessly joined the battle. The pirate captain didn't attack her. He didn't even seem to perceive Rune's existence in his undead senses. But Rune's laser breath didn't do anything to the undead either.

  The main battle power against the undead leader was still Jack, Big Boss Lodegrey, and Lady Gemrose.

  Although Jack had never cooperated with the two mercenary leaders before, he had seen how they battled in Primordial Realm. He adjusted his fighting style to fit in with the two's cooperation.

  It worked. Not that well. But it worked. And they had one more advantage. The rest of the battlefield was going their way. The city defenders were winning. They were massacring the undead pirates.

  The [Azure Moon Lantern] was still glowing despite being dropped by Jack during the fight. Added with the church acolytes providing support against undead's nature, the regular undead pirates were being systematically wiped out.

  And Jack noticed... as each pirate fell, the captain seemed to get slightly, very slightly, weakened.

  "Get back!" Jack roared. Swinging his hammer in a wide arc to keep the undead pirate leader from closing in on Lady Gemrose.

  The situation was slowly moving onto the city defenders' advantage.

  Mercenaries who had finished their fights began to gather at the edge of the main battle zone. They didn't dare enter the melee against the pirate captain. But they could use ranged attack. They fired rifles and threw alchemical bombs. Creating a chaotic environment that deter the undead leader's threat.

  But the situation changed abruptly...

  The pirate captain let out a strange call. Not a scream. But a low, vibrating growl that made the sea itself go still. He stopped moving and looked toward his ghost ship. The ancient, oriental junk.

  The ghost ship began to dissolve. The rotting wood, the tattered sails, and the spectral cannons turned into a swirling vortex of dark green energy. The massive vessel transformed into an energy phantom. A localized hurricane of soul power and lingering malice.

  The vortex rushed toward the shore. Ignoring everything in its path. And it slammed into the pirate captain.

  What happened next was cool yet terrifying at the same time. The captain's body... evolved. Transforming into something else.

  The energy phantom of the ship crystallized around him. Forming a suit of demonic armor. Spikes of black bone protruded from his shoulders. A mask of polished obsidian covered his face. And a long, tattered cape of shadows billowed behind him. Crackling with green lightning.

  His power level spiked. The air became so heavy with killing intent that the weaker transcendent mercenaries within range simply collapsed. Unable to stand.

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  The undead pirate captain was gone. In his place stood something far worse. An armored super warrior of the abyss. A fusion of a martial master and a cursed warship.

  "Oh, you've got to be kidding me." Jack muttered. Sensing the terrifying power coming from the transformed figure.

  The newly evolved captain didn't wait for a 'formal introduction'. He moved like a lightning. One moment he was there like a standing statue. The next, he was a blur of kinetic violence.

  Big Boss Lodegrey sensed the undead targeted him. He transformed his armor. Turning the bulk of his steampunk mech-armor plates into a hydraulic shield.

  It didn't matter. The pirate captain's palm slammed into the center of the shield. Crackling with green lightning. The reinforced steel buckled like wet cardboard.

  The shockwave sent the super heavy suit skidding back more than ten meters. Tearing deep grooves into the cobblestone wharf. Steam hissed violently from ruptured pipes in the armor's joints.

  Lady Gemrose fared no better. She flapped her mechanical wings hard. Trying to gain altitude to rain down more steamrune bullets.

  The captain simply stomped the ground and jumped. Overtaking her on air. He grabbed and snagged one of her wings. And slammed her down from the sky. She crashed into a stack of shipping crates with a sickening crunch of metal and bone.

  Jack, in his hulking rakshasa form, roared and lunged. He was fast. But the undead pirate leader was even faster. And he was also a master of a dead era's martial arts.

  The pirate pivoted on a heel and caught Jack's massive wrist. He used the rakshasa's own momentum to judo-throw and slam him face-first into the ground.

  Jack felt his skull rattle. Before he could push up, a boot hit his ribs. The strength was even greater than what he expected. He flew through the air. Smashing through the brick wall of a nearby warehouse.

  Dust choked the air. Screams echoed from the shoreline. Jack pulled himself out of the rubble. Coughing up thick, dark blood.

  He could see he City Watch members, the mercenaries, and the priests were being dismantled overwhelmingly by the single pirate captain. The tide hadn't just turned bad. It had become the hell for them.

  Rune, the tiny dragon, hovered beside Jack. Her draconic light was a frantic, pulsing bright menacing red. Indicating great danger.

  "I know, Rune." Jack spat. Wiping blood from his chin. "He's a monster. Give me a second."

  He activated [Eyes of Judgement] again. Focusing on the dark silhouette that had become the center of the devastation. The world turned into a grid of data...

  [Name: Captain Long Feng]

  [Race: Fusion of Undead Human and Ghost Ship]

  [Affiliation: The Lonely Queen]

  [Karma: Extreme Negative]

  [Power Level: Extremely High (enhanced)]

  [Power Class: Enhanced Undead Martial Fighter]

  [Power Traits: Ghost Dragon Physique, Illuminated Core, Undead Supremacy, Cursed Fusion]

  [Personalities: Serious, Vicious]

  [Attitude: Hostile]

  Jack squinted at the floating text. At first glance, it didn't seem that different compared to the pre-evolution captain. [Race] showed comprehensible change. [Power Level] and [Power Class] only added the word 'enhanced'.

  But Jack wasn't a standard observer. He looked at the sub-text, the traits he had memorized from their previous clash.

  "The traits changed..." Jack muttered.

  The trait [Hyper Regeneration] was gone. And the [Ship-Bound Curse] was also gone. In its place was [Cursed Fusion]. Jack accessed the detailed description...

  [Power Trait: Cursed Fusion. The soul and physical essence of the ship have been grafted onto the host. This grants a massive increase to strength, speed, durability, and destructive output. However, the organic-undead synthesis is brittle. Natural regeneration is sacrificed entirely for raw power.]

  There was also that [Ghost Dragon Physique]. He checked it...

  [Power Trait: Ghost Dragon Physique. It grants near-total immunity to elemental magic and physical blunt force. However, the balance of the soul is tilted toward the deepest negative energy. Sunlight and healing energy deal ten times critical damage and bypass all defenses.]

  A slow, jagged grin spread across Jack’s face. The undead captain had traded his safety net for a bigger hammer. He was a glass cannon made of the hardest glass in the world now.

  If they couldn't break him, they died. But if they knew where to tap, he would shatter.

  Jack could see Big Boss Lodegray and Lady Gemrose returned to the battlefield. They clashed with the evolved pirate captain. The two were obviously in disadvantage. But they should be able to last for a while.

  "Reina!" Jack shouted as he stood up and transformed back to human form. He needed the human incarnation for the next plan.

  A swirl of mist appeared beside him. Reina teleported just beside him. Her face was pale but her eyes were sharp.

  "Dear, we need to leave." She urged. "Or use the Mirror World trick with your specter form. This isn't a fight we could win in normal way."

  "We're not using normal way, Love," Jack said. He pulled a shimmering, tarot-like spellcard from his pocket... It was the [Dragon’s Lullaby]. "We're using this."

  "He's undead, Dear. Does undead even sleep?" Reina asked. Glancing doubtfully at the pirate captain. "Even if he does, the spellcard would heal him, wouldn't it?"

  "Undead doesn't sleep normally. But this spell is absolute. He will sleep. And he can't heal." Jack said. His voice was cold and fast. "He’s got zero regeneration."

  The card was a spell card he extracted from the dragon skeleton during the Deep Silence case. It was an absolute spell that put the targets into a deep sleep and multiplied their natural regeneration by a thousand until they woke up. Since the current state of the pirate captain has zero regeneration, it would be fine. A thousand times zero is still zero.

  "The moment he sleeps, he won't be a threat." Reina realized. "And we get time to prepare better things to defeat him. Traps, seals..."

  "Exactly." Jack agreed. "But we only get one shot. The spellcard's cooldown is 7 hours. If it misses... Or if anyone hits him, and he wakes up..."

  "What should I do, Dear?"

  "You use the spellcard." Jack gave the card to her. "I'll restrain him and prevent anyone to hit him when he is asleep."

  Jack didn't wait. He charged directly to the battle zone of superhuman power. In his human mercenary form.