Martial Arts Worlds

The silver-sailed ship docked in Lord's Island, and the nasty-looking pirates descended from the ship with swords in hand.

When they reached the town, they noticed it was eerily quiet.

The shops were closed, the windows closed tight, and not a single person was in sight.

"Oh? They must've seen us come!"

A pirate shouted out. Enjoy more content from empire

"Hmm…"

Ambrose looked towards the church on the hill. He could sense quite a few presences there. However, he didn't seem to care.

"Doesn't matter. Find the supplies and meet us back on the ship. While we aren't near any navy outposts, these people here must've already called for them."

The pirates nodded and headed towards different shops. They didn't plan on buying any of the supplies. They were pirates; they were going to steal!

The windows shattered and the doors broke apart as pirates made their way inside the shops.

"Kiernan, you take the bar."

Ambrose nudged his chin towards the closed door bar that also seemed empty and quiet.

With a nod, Kiernan headed to the bar and entered through the swinging door.

However, he quickly noticed that the bar wasn't empty after all.

There wasn't a bartender, but a pair of drunken men was sitting at the corner table. It looked like they didn't heed the warning of approaching pirates.

"I… burp… found this!" One of them showed a map to his drunken friend. "A treasure… burp… map!"

"You got swindled?" His friend asked with a tired smile. "These treasure maps are nonsense, I am telling you!"

"No… this is the real one!" He said and waved it around. "I am going to become rich!"

Kiernan shook his head and headed to the back room.

It had barrels lining the walls, and most were full of alcohol.

As he was about to start carrying the first barrel, he remembered the ramblings of the drunken man and had something stirring inside him that gave him a crazy idea.

'Wait a moment…'

Kiernan frowned, opened the system interface, and pressed on the store function. It had three choices to purchase, but he only cared about one of them.

'The treasure map. It gives great benefits to the user, so it is a system's way of helping me. I wonder if it can also help me to buy my freedom?'

As he thought about it, his heart started to race.

'5,000 gold coins. I don't have that kind of money, but I am still holding Julian's money. I don't think he minds if I use his money to purchase it if it helps us to get our freedom back.

'However, it is a far-fetched theory, and I would also have to convince Ambrose somehow to go to the treasure map location.'

He looked at the treasure map and nodded—he made up his mind to go for it.

As he was about to take some of Julian's money to get his wealth over five thousand, some kind of blunt object suddenly hit him in the back of the head, and he collapsed on top of the barrel.

"W-w-what the hell?"

Kiernan turned around to see who had just hit him. He could barely see the frightened-looking man before he again hit him with the blunt object, causing Kiernan to lose consciousness.

Everything turned dark.

…

"What are we going to do now?"

"These pirates are going to kill us!"

"Shut your traps. This is the only way to make them leave!"

"This pirate is so young too. I didn't know they started their life of crime so early."

"Some people are just born evil; that's how it is!"

Strange voices sounded all around Kiernan.

His closed eyes started twitching, and he let out a short moan of pain before opening his eyes and looking around the dark and damp basement.

He was tied to a chair, and the back of his head was bleeding.

"What the hell?" Kiernan looked at the townspeople in front of him. "What do you want?"

"Finally awake, huh?" Reed said while holding a small statue of a devil whale in his right hand.

The bottom of the statue was bloody. It looked like he used the statue to knock Kiernan unconscious.

His friends, Eddy and Webber, looked at the young pirate anxiously.

They didn't help on knocking him out, but they helped Reed to drag the pirate to the basement and then tied him up.

"Why have you come here, pirate?" Reed asked while standing at a safe distance away.

"…"

Kiernan stayed quiet before he sighed and replied.

"For supplies."

"We don't have anything to spare for you filthy pirates!" Reed gritted his teeth. "I want all of you to leave."

"Sure, just untie me, and we'll be on our way." Kiernan said.

"Don't think of me as a fool," Reed said, and put the statue aside before retrieving his cross necklace from his breast pocket.

The necklace had some symbols etched into the metal.

"We're going to make a Pact…" Reed said. "With the Pact, you pirates have no choice but to leave!"

'A Pact?' Kiernan frowned.

"Reed, you can't possibly expect pirates to respect it!" Eddy cried out. "They're all heathens; you can't trust them!"

"If they don't respect the Pact, the great Abrahamic God will strike them down with His mighty lightning of tribulations!"

Reed then yanked Kiernan to his feet and started pushing him up the stairs. They left through a door and went across the bar. It looked like they were inside the bar's basement all this time.

Then, they left through the front door, and while Reed pushed Kiernan forward, his friends were anxiously following him behind.

As soon as they arrived at the street, the pirates looked over, and after seeing Kiernan's dilemma, they started to laugh.

"Young one, what happened?" A pirate asked with a laugh. "Did you get caught lacking?"

"…" Kiernan's expression looked cold.

Julian stepped out of one of the stores and looked over with crossed arms.

"Don't come any closer!" Reed placed a knife against Kiernan's throat. "I will kill him. I fucking will!"

"Oh, wait a moment, good sir!" Ambrose stepped out of the shoemaker's place and had his arms up in surrender. "I am sure we can come to some sort of agreement."

"I want all of you to leave!" Reed shouted. "And never come back!"

"Haha, what if I say yes?" Ambrose asked. "I don't think you will be trusting in our words on that. What if I just lie to save his life and then come back?"

"We're going to make a Pact!" Reed shouted. "Under the Abrahamic God's watchful eye, we're going to make God's Pact!"

When the pirates heard it, their laughter faded away, and they stared at Reed in disbelief.

"Oh…?" Ambrose narrowed his gaze. "Do you have what it takes to make God's Pact?"

"I do!" Reed pressed his lips against the cross necklace. "I am the faithful servant of Him."

'God's Pact?' Kiernan stood silently. 'I am quite curious about this. I was planning on making a move, but I guess I'll wait for a moment longer.'