Chapter 433 -433-An Atmosphere of Despair
That was the flag of the King’s Edge Pirates.
The King’s Edge Pirates did not kill people without reason.
They were different from other Pirate Crews.
Realizing this, the captain immediately shouted,
"Everyone, stay calm! We’ve only encountered a Pirate Crew. According to the rules of the pirates, they won’t kill us for no reason."
"Whatever you do, don’t make any moves that could cause a misunderstanding. If we provoke them into retaliating against us, then we’ll really be finished!"
The captain repeatedly tried to calm the terrified sailors.
These sailors came from other Maritime Kingdoms.
According to everything they had experienced and been taught, pirates were the most terrifying, vicious, and brutal people in the world.
They did not merely rob people.
They killed them as well.
To them, encountering pirates at sea was even more terrifying than encountering a giant sea serpent.
That was what they had been taught since childhood.
But now the captain was telling them that even pirates followed rules?
What was going on?
The sailors found it difficult to believe.
But under the current circumstances, they had no choice but to trust their captain for the time being.
Just then, several fast ships approached from the distance and surrounded the merchant vessel from both sides.
A pirate aboard one of the fast ships shouted,
"Which guild are you from?"
The merchant vessel flew a flag depicting a white cloud.
The captain quickly looked toward the pirates nearby and replied,
"Yes, yes! We’re from the White Cloud Guild!"
The captain’s expression suddenly changed as he asked in alarm,
"Why are you doing this?"
The pirate suddenly grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.
"Because we’re attacking Cloudspire Harbor."
Boom!
The captain’s mind went completely blank.
He could barely process what he had just heard.
Since when had pirates become this brazen?
They now even dared to attack the cities of Maritime Kingdoms?!
...
At this very moment, fifteen hundred warships of various types had completely surrounded the waters around Cloudspire Harbor.
Any vessel attempting to sail toward Cloudspire Harbor was immediately detained.
Even ships trying to leave the harbor were temporarily disarmed.
They would only regain their freedom...
once Cloudspire Harbor had fallen.
Some ships sensed that something was wrong the moment they left port.
They immediately turned around and fled back into the harbor, bringing news of the pirate blockade to the city’s upper echelons.
The leaders of Cloudspire Harbor were instantly shocked.
Since when had pirates become so bold?
They actually dared attack a city belonging to a Lan Sea Duchy!
The cities of the Lan Sea Duchies possessed extraordinarily formidable defenses.
Every major port maintained its own defensive fleet.
And those defensive fleets consisted entirely of medium and large destroyers.
Cloudspire Harbor possessed twenty destroyers in total.
Yet those twenty ships alone could unleash combat power comparable to a hundred large pirate warships.
Throughout history, no Pirate Crew had ever successfully challenged the defenses of a Lan Sea Duchy city.
Of course, even if someone had tried...
they were probably long dead.
But this time was different.
The challenger was the strongest Pirate Crew in history.
A force known as the Sixth Lan Sea Duchy.
The King of the Seas.
A legend of the pirate world.
A power whose influence now stretched across the waters of two Maritime Kingdoms—
the King’s Edge Pirates.
The upper echelons of Cloudspire Harbor immediately panicked.
Karen did not understand John’s intentions.
But because he and John had a relatively close relationship in secret, he decided to send one of his trusted aides to contact John without informing the other city leaders.
"Lord John, Headmaster Karen would like to know what you intend to do."
The man speaking was the same person who had handled various documents for John in the past.
He was one of Karen’s trusted subordinates, and John was already somewhat familiar with him.
John replied directly,
"Isn’t my intention obvious enough?"
"I want everything in Cloudspire Harbor."
"Lord John, this is an extremely serious matter," the aide said solemnly.
"The people of Cloudspire Harbor—and the people of the Lan Sea Duchies in general—view pirates as mortal enemies."
"You have no foundation for ruling them. You won’t have the support of the people."
"Without popular support, you won’t be able to establish yourselves in a Lan Sea Duchy for long."
"Headmaster Karen advises you to extort a sum of money and leave it at that."
"If you become too greedy, it may bring disaster upon you."
John sneered.
"Are you threatening me?"
"Go back and tell Karen that he doesn’t need to concern himself with my affairs."
"If he willingly hands Cloudspire Harbor over to me, I’ll spare him."
"But if he refuses to surrender and I capture him later..."
"then don’t blame me for being ruthless."
The aide gave John a long look.
Then he sighed and returned with the message.
When Karen heard John’s response, he did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Everything he had done for John in the past now felt like lifting a rock only to drop it on his own foot.
Who could have imagined that the insignificant pirate who had once possessed only a single warship...
would carve out such an enormous domain for himself?
And today—
his army had arrived right outside the city.
Karen’s first thought was to flee.
His aide shook his head.
"You can’t escape."
"Lord John already said that the surrounding waters have been completely sealed off."
"Not even a mosquito could fly out."
Karen sighed bitterly.
"You reap what you sow..."
He was talking about himself.
...
Since ancient times, pirates had always occupied the very bottom of the social hierarchy.
Naturally, the upper echelons of Cloudspire Harbor had no intention of surrendering to pirates.
They were nobles!
How could nobles surrender to pirates, people whose status was considered even lower than that of ordinary commoners?
To them, such a thing would be the ultimate humiliation.
So negotiation and bribery became their preferred choices.
Unfortunately...
John accepted the money.
But he refused to withdraw.
That infuriated Cloudspire Harbor’s leaders and nobles.
If John was determined to fight...
then they would fight.
...
On John’s side...
More than a thousand warships had gathered outside Cloudspire Harbor, forming a dark mass that stretched across the sea.
Among these thousand-plus vessels, many were tiny three-man assault boats.
There were relatively few large warships.
John looked toward the towering fortress walls and the cannons protruding from the fortifications.
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
Cloudspire Harbor possessed many powerful coastal defense guns.
But their numbers were ultimately limited.
If all the small assault boats charged simultaneously, their tiny size would make them extremely difficult targets for cannon fire.
The only truly troublesome obstacles were the twenty destroyers stationed outside the harbor and the coastal batteries near the port.
But there was no clever way around that.
John would simply have to bury them beneath overwhelming numbers of ships...
and lives.
Fortunately, he had prepared for exactly this situation.
John had already taken control of every major pirate island across two Maritime Kingdoms.
He lacked neither manpower nor craftsmen.
Nor resources.
Nor technology.
In an extremely short period of time, his forces had frantically constructed small assault boats.
More than ten thousand of them had been built!
If the surrounding waters had been large enough to deploy them all at once...
they could have covered the entire sea.
...
The upper echelons of Cloudspire Harbor stared grimly at the countless warships opposite them.
One glance was enough for them to understand John’s plan.
But there was nothing they could do about it.
On the surface, Cloudspire Harbor appeared impregnable.
Yet that did not mean it had no weaknesses.
Against ordinary Pirate Crews—even powerful factions like the former Logar Pirates—Cloudspire Harbor would have had nothing to fear.
But the enemy standing before them now was John.
The super-pirate who had unified the waters of two kingdoms.
Even through sheer attrition alone...
he could grind Cloudspire Harbor into the ground.
And yet, asking these nobles to bow their heads and surrender?
That was equally impossible.