doitstory Chapter 209: THE RED BONES — FIRST BLOOD (1)
Chapter 209: THE RED BONES — FIRST BLOOD (1)
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[Open ocean — Central zone — Day 24]
Kira saw them from the crow’s nest before dawn.
Not one. Three.
"Three ships to the northwest. Coordinated interception course." A pause. "They’ve been in that formation for twenty minutes."
Max came up on deck with his spyglass.
One second.
"The Red Bones."
His tone was different from the one he had used with the Sea Fangs.
"How different are they from the Sea Fangs?" asked Emily.
"The Sea Fangs charge a toll." Max lowered the spyglass. "The Red Bones don’t charge anything. They take everything — the ship, the cargo, the crew if it’s useful to them." A pause. "They don’t negotiate."
"Never?"
"Never."
Viktor from the lower deck stairs, coffee in hand and the expression of someone who had come out to see what the noise was:
"They’re using the triangular blockade formation. They’ll surround us in twenty minutes if we don’t change course."
"Can we avoid them?" asked Maya, map already in hand.
"No." Kira from above. "The south flank has the migration current. The north is within their reading radius. They’ve already located us."
Seraph looked at the three ships on the horizon.
"They know what we’re carrying."
"How can they know from that distance?" asked Jessica with her notebook.
"Because they’ve been observing for twenty minutes and they have someone who reads magical signatures at long range." Seraph. "The Sea Fangs passed the information."
Max:
"Which means they’re not going to let us pass."
---
The three ships arrived in eighteen minutes.
Three times the size of the team’s boat, with the black flag and the symbol of a broken white bone on a red background. They surrounded the team’s boat in the exact triangle Kira had predicted — one in front, one on each flank.
Boats came down from the three ships.
Four per ship. Twelve boats.
"How many people?" asked Alex.
"Estimated eighty active crew members across the three ships," said Kira. "Levels between 60 and 79. Plus the captain on the front ship — he has a signature suppression enchantment. I can’t read his level."
Viktor leaned on the railing, still holding his coffee.
Max looked at him.
"Aren’t you going to do anything?"
"I’m watching." Viktor looking at the twelve boats approaching. "Someone has to document this."
"Jessica does that."
"Jessica documents data." Viktor. "I watch the progress."
Max looked at him for another second.
"You’re old."
"Completely." Viktor without moving. "And that’s why I’m alive to see this."
---
The captain arrived on the last boat.
Forty years old. Scalp scars from enchantments carved directly into the skin. His eyes had a specific glow.
He climbed onto the boat with twelve of his men.
He looked at the team.
He looked specifically at Alex.
"Three Fragments," he said. Not a question.
"Three," said Alex.
"F1. F4. F5." The captain enumerated them with precision. "The Core, the Veil, and Dominion." He looked at Raven. "F3." He looked at Seraph. "F2."
Seraph didn’t respond.
"Five Fragments on the same boat." The captain looked at his twelve men. Then at the team. "Forty years ago, my father saw two Fragments in the same place. He said it was the most powerful thing he had ever seen in his life."
"So?" said Alex.
"And he died trying to take them." The captain. "But he didn’t know what I know."
"What do you know?"
The captain raised his left hand.
Palm up. A mark that pulsed with its own light — dark red, with the cadence of something alive integrated into the skin.
"That the ocean also has power." The captain. "And that those of us who live here long enough learn to take it."
---
The Depth Mark pulsed.
The water around the boat responded — not as a wave, as pressure. The ocean within a fifty‑meter radius compressing from all sides.
[Alex HP: 580,000 → 566,400]
No visible strike. Just the ocean applied as a weapon.
"Interesting," said Jessica with her pen ready.
"Jessica," said Emily.
"Just observing."
The captain’s twelve men attacked.
Maritime enchantments — blue energy nets, compressed water projectiles, currents used as extensions of each strike. Not main continent magic. Decades of ocean condensed into technique.
The team responded.
---
Alex saw it all in the first ten seconds.
Kira in the crow’s nest — three arrows before the first pirate’s energy net reached halfway through its trajectory. Not aiming at the pirate. Aiming at the enchantment. The net collapsed before it could expand.
*Six months ago,* Alex thought as he blocked the captain’s first strike, *Kira needed to see the full enchantment to read it. Now she reads it at its source.*
Raven on the right flank — four marine skeletons emerging from the water simultaneously, intercepting the projectiles before they reached the hull. No verbal command. Raven had read the trajectory before the projectiles were fired.
*Six months ago, Army of Bones needed solid ground to operate. Now it operates better in the water than on land.*
Emily with Purifying Light in defensive mode — the blue‑white barrier meeting the current‑enhanced strikes before they reached the team, dissipating the current energy at the point of contact.
*Six months ago the barrier lasted three exchanges. Now it holds without Emily changing expression.*
Alex held his block against the captain and for one second — less than a second — he looked at the whole team.
*I dragged them into this,* he thought. *Into the ocean, the pirates, the Trench, everything that comes after. They chose to follow me.*
*And they became stronger because of it.*
*I don’t know if that’s something to be proud of or something to carry.*
The smile came on its own anyway.
The captain saw it.
"What do you find funny?"
"Nothing." Alex oriented F1’s scythe. "Just appreciating the view."
---
The captain attacked.
The ocean’s pressure concentrated into his fist. Each strike arriving with the ocean behind it.
Alex blocked with F1’s scythe.
The impact pushed him two meters back.
[Alex HP: 566,400 → 543,200]
*Strong,* he thought. *The Mark multiplies base strength by the volume of water he can control at the moment of the strike.*
*In open ocean, that volume is unlimited.*
The captain didn’t wait for recovery — immediate second strike, a different angle, the ocean responding from the left flank this time.
Alex turned. F4’s scythe intercepted from the side.
The Veil’s violet plane dissolved part of the pressure at the point of contact — F4 reading the water’s spiritual plane and finding the channel the Mark used to amplify.
[Alex HP: 543,200 → 528,900]
Less damage than the first.
*F4 can interfere with the Mark,* Alex noted. *The Mark’s channel passes through the ocean’s spiritual plane. The Veil operates on that plane.*
"How many Fragments do you have?" said the captain.
"You already said it before. Three."
"Only at thirty percent?"
Alex didn’t respond.
*How does he know that?*
The captain struck his chest — directly into F1’s channel.
[Alex HP: 528,900 → 496,100]
[F1 Corruption: 97% → 97.5%]
*He knows how to strike a bearer,* Alex thought. *He’s not looking for physical damage. He’s looking to raise corruption.*
*If I reach one hundred percent, the Harvester does the work for him.*
"F1 at one hundred percent," said the captain, confirming what Alex was thinking. "I don’t need to take your Fragments from you. I just need the Fragments to take you from yourself."
---
Viktor from the railing.
He watched the fight with his coffee in hand — not with the tension of someone watching something in danger, but with the specific expression of someone recognizing something he had been waiting years to see.
His eyes passed over Kira. Over Emily. Over Maya with her maps turned into real‑time tactical analysis.
They stopped on Raven.
Raven with sixteen marine skeletons operating simultaneously — four in the water under the boat, six on the surface intercepting, six more being constructed from the bones of the projectiles the pirates were firing and that the skeletons were absorbing instead of destroying.
Raven converting the enemy’s materials into more Army of Bones in real time.
*When I held it, I couldn’t summon more than eight skeletons without losing control of F3,* Viktor thought. *Now Raven here is operating sixteen with independent movements and building more at the same time.*
*Without breaking a sweat.*
Max came to his side from the helm.
"Aren’t you going to do anything?"
"No." Viktor without taking his eyes off Raven.
"There are eighty pirates on three ships."
"And there are Six Fragments on this boat." Viktor. "If they need my help with that, I retired too soon."
Max looked at him.
"Is it because of Raven?"
Viktor didn’t answer immediately.
On the left flank, Raven cut down the third pirate in her group with F3’s scythe — clean, without urgency, with the coldness of someone doing what needed to be done and no more.
"When she arrived at the Circle she was sixteen, and I taught her everything I knew about blood magic," Viktor said quietly.
"I spent three weeks unable to get close to her because she kept trying to attack me with traps — because I had trained her to be a good assassin." A pause. "Because it was the only way to protect her from what was out there."
On the left flank, Raven finished the fourth pirate in her group.
F3’s green eyes turned briefly toward Viktor — one second, less than a second — before returning to the fight.
Viktor said nothing more.
---
Seraph from the right flank.
[F2 — Paladin — full activation]
The three pirates in front of her took an instinctive step back — F2’s hard white light was not something the instincts of anyone trained in combat could ignore.
She didn’t give them the second step.
F2’s edge cut the first one’s enchantment at its source — not the body, the soul, because unlike the others, Raven had no remorse about finishing her opponents. The enchantment collapsed. The pirate fell into the water without the support that had kept him alive.
Second pirate — the scythe spinning in a vertical arc, the edge finding the raised arm blocking. F2 dissolved the enchantment in the arm as well.
The third tried to run.
Seraph didn’t let him reach the boat.
[3 pirates — neutralized]
[Time: 44 seconds]
---
Maya on the lower deck with the maps.
Not fighting — analyzing.
*Three ships. Twelve boats. Eighty crew members.* Maya looking at the pattern. *But only twelve boarded.*
*The ships haven’t moved from their blockade positions. They have magical cannons and haven’t used them.*
*They’re waiting for something.*
"Max!" she shouted toward the helm.
"What!"
"Do the Red Bones’ ships have magical cannons?"
Max looked at the ships.
"Yes."
"They haven’t used them." Maya. "They’re waiting for the captain to capture Alex alive before escalating."
"Why alive?"
Maya looked at the center of the deck where Alex was fighting the captain.
"Because the Harvester at one hundred percent does the work for them."