Pirate Kingship.

Chapter 494: Pirate Kingship and the Iron Mask
call out--!
An illusory black shadow that even the mid-sequence extraordinary people could not detect flapped its wings and flew high. Like a black sharp arrow, it instantly crossed the clouds thousands of feet high and disappeared at the end of the field of vision in the blink of an eye.

Surrounded by countless storm spirits, it left countless islands, the vast ocean, and the flowing clouds in the sky far behind in just a moment.

Only when it was close to its destination did it slow down slightly, allowing people to see clearly that it was actually a majestic raven with black feathers and golden eyes.

It was Fokine, one of Byron's two ravens.

Another crow, Muni, is still in the native land, monitoring the battlefield and the White Rose Family's every move at any time.

Fujin had stayed on the [Numa Nan Dan] some time ago to monitor the enemy situation and assisted the pirate fleet in cooperating with the enemy.
Now possessed by Byron's consciousness, he traveled thousands of miles from the Bantaan Islands to the island of Malta in the middle of the Sea.

It was also the place where Aunt Margaret and other female members of the Lancaster family were imprisoned.

Looking down from the sky, Malta Island is about the same size as the Taiman Islands, with an area of ​​approximately 245 square kilometers. The island has a steep terrain with many cliffs, caves and valleys, and there is almost no flat place to be found.

On a towering cliff in the southern part of the island, stands a large monastery, complete with high walls, spires, bell towers, and arrow slits.

It felt more like a high-security prison than a monastery.

Looking at the building, Fujin's golden eyes flashed with a sharpness:
“We have finally come to this point.

As the 'Last Lancaster' rises step by step, the York family, feeling threatened, will never give up this trump card.

I must plan ahead and not give those traitors who have no moral integrity the opportunity to threaten me.

Only by ensuring the safety of his aunt and others and resolving this last worry can he concentrate on planning to take back the throne of Lancaster.

By the way, achieve dual promotion of [Ladder of Glory] and [Bloodline Codex].

All strategic focus in the next year will be here, and we cannot afford to lose it."

Although their family of three had just been promoted to double fourth level.

But judging by their ability and frequency in causing trouble, by the time they return to seize the throne next year, it will be no problem for their spirituality to grow rapidly to the critical point of 20 points at level five.

He took advantage of the opportunity to seize power to get promoted.

Moreover, the next promotion ceremonies of Byron's two extraordinary routes are highly overlapping.

“If [Night Demon] wants to be promoted to the fifth-order pseudo-god, the prerequisite is to find his own immortal ladder.

As the highest level of rentiers and aristocrats, their core method of advancement has always been - 'usurpation of power'.

Achieve self-improvement in a bloody palace coup or a usurpation of high power.

Every time they usurp power in the system, their occult rank rises, bringing them closer to the old god Lilith."

"If the Storm Lord wants to be promoted to the fifth-level legendary Storm King, he needs to repeat the experience of his ancestors who successfully landed as Storm Knights from pirates.

The essence is just like the famous saying: 'Those who steal a hook will be executed, and those who steal a country will become princes.'

Opening ceremony: 'Pirate Kingship', successfully seize a complete and ready-made country, replace the original king, and consolidate your own kingship.

In this way, he achieved a gorgeous transformation, and completely transformed from a pirate who was not presentable and could only steal gold, silver, jewelry and women, into a prince who "stole the country".

They also changed their main source of income from then on from robbery to taxation!

In this continent, the king is the biggest thief in the world, a true bloodthirsty creature.

Of course, this is also one of the whales that the [Whale Hunter] said was unwilling to become a whale fall. "

Byron was excited as he planned his future.

The most important thing is that even after being promoted in the future, he doesn’t have to worry about not having more power for him to continue usurping.

Since Violet is the granddaughter of [Queen of Eternal Night] Margaret I, even if their relationship is not good, she naturally has the right to claim the throne of the three kingdoms of the Kalmar Union!
It is still the most unquestionable strong claim that once the throne of the Kalmar Union becomes vacant, no one will be ahead of her in the succession line.

After taking back the throne of Hastings, he will pick up these crowns one by one. Maybe it will be possible not only to restore the glory of the North Sea Empire in their hands, but also to condense a [Crown] belonging to the people of the Bay!
"If you want to gain the pirate kingship, take the first step today."

Byron folded his wings and flew down towards the monastery.

They stuck to the monastery wall and avoided the St. Angelo Fortress on the other side, which was guarded by the Knights of Malta.

Intelligence shows that not only is the most elite Maltese Knights stationed there, but there is also a fifth-rank legendary Grand Master, who is the de facto king of the Knights - [Holy Spear] Valette.

Confirmed record shows that he is someone he cannot beat.

His main purpose this time was to investigate the details of the monastery, see with his own eyes the situation of his aunt and her party, and prepare for the subsequent rescue plan.

It is best to avoid a direct conflict with the Paladin if possible.

Byron entered this magnificent complex silently through an open window.

Suddenly, many nuns wearing black and white robes and silver cross emblems on their chests appeared before my eyes.

A considerable number of them are extraordinary people from the Temple sequence.

But there was no male.

Byron knew that the monasteries under the church were divided into male monasteries and female monasteries, which existed as schools for training clergy and were managed by male and female abbess respectively.

It can be said that during the Dark Millennium, apart from the "Key of Omniscience" located in the collective subconscious of mankind, these monasteries were the only places in the material world where civilization was preserved on a large scale and in a systematic manner.

Many people who came out of here became the right-hand men of the king and nobles at all levels, and they were also the tight tentacles that the church extended to rule the entire continent.

That thousand years was the most glorious era of the church.

The Dark Millennium just ended in the year 1453 of the Silver Age, and the monastery still retains the atmosphere of the past: tranquil, solemn, and dignified, yet also very depressing.

Byron walked through the corridors of the monastery, and even when he passed by those extraordinary nuns, they didn't feel anything unusual.

With Byron's own promotion, the two ravens' concealment ability also increased, and no mid-sequence extraordinary person could detect them.

But Byron, who sneaked into the monastery, did not dare to be careless.

Recalling the news that Sister Teresa had inquired from the church's upper echelons, even with his boldness, a hint of fear could not help but flash in his eyes:
"The dean who came up with this kind of defense is a genius!"

The Malta Abbey is the core monastery of the Order of Malta.

Not only are the nuns' faith extremely devout and their willpower very strong, they also offer various powerful [holy relics] passed down from generation to generation by their predecessors.

Just like many famous cathedrals, this place has formed a divine domain similar to the royal domain.

The core holy relic of the "Mass of Praise" at the center of the divine realm is the Holy Foreskin, a level 0 holy relic that was also damaged in the great battle of Ragnarok.

This is the embodiment of the Creator's reproductive power. Legend has it that infertile women will immediately become fertile if they look at it. It can also make cattle and sheep reproduce at an accelerated rate, giving shepherds endless enjoyment.

The Maltese monastery divine domain ruled by it naturally has very difficult to solve corresponding rules.

Byron's ally, Sister Teresa of Mercy, had already found out the inside story for him:

“In the realm of God there are only two genders, male and female, and everything else is heresy.

The convent is the purest place and the one closest to God. The nuns must remain chaste, poor and strictly abide by various rules of nuns.

Therefore, rule one is that any biological male or even male creature who enters the monastery will be forced to have his biological gender converted to female, no matter what you think in your heart.

Furthermore, due to the suppression of the high status of the Level 0 Relic, this process cannot be reversed!

Unless another level 0 relic with similar powers is found.

Rule 2: Remember, besides the prisoners, there are only nuns in the convent. Any illegal intruder must abide by all the nun's rules after being converted into a woman.

Once the taboo is violated, the offender will be punished according to the severity of the offense. The most severe punishment is called "the Virgin Mary's stare", and whoever is stared at will become pregnant.

And only girls will be born in chastity.

Note: Only cardinals and above in the church can be immune to the punishment mechanism and enter and exit the monastery safely. "

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Mercy, where Sister Teresa was born, controls the church's treasury and has the power to sell indulgences, and holds a very high status among the major traditional religious orders of the church.

This helped Byron collect information about the Maltese monastery in advance and saved him from the disaster of the monastery rules.

Although his title of "Saint" gave him a status in the church comparable to that of a cardinal archbishop, he did not dare to use his real body for experiments.

People have made it clear that the rules are irreversible. If you are not careful and go from "one king and two queens" to "one queen and two queens", your life will be completely ruined.

It is not much better than the title ability of [Incompetent] "Same as me".

Byron calmed down, a trace of relief appeared on his face:
“So, in order to have a chance to explore this ‘country of women’, I have to endure the hardships of Fujin.

Even if the [Saint] cannot withstand the rules of the divine realm, the only one who will be sacrificed is Fujin.

By the way, it can also make its good brother, the Mine Single Crow, ecstatic? One loss and one gain, it doesn't seem so hard to accept. "

If Fu Jin's IQ was a little higher and he had a complete self-awareness, he would give his unscrupulous master a: 6 no matter what.

You are aloof and great, but it is not you who makes the brothers happy. I should be rotten in the long river of history of the Taiwanese people.

Fortunately, the worst outcome did not happen.

Two minutes after Byron entered the monastery, he found that Fokine's bell was still there, which made him finally breathe a sigh of relief and soothed the slight sense of guilt in his heart.

But then he also discovered that when he was in the divine realm, his [divine vision], which was comparable to the senses of a god, was also suppressed. The perception that could originally cover an area of ​​several kilometers was now greatly reduced to less than a hundred meters.

Compared to a huge monastery that is like a small city, the realization seems a bit beyond its capacity.

We can only use the crude method of checking each building and courtyard one by one.

Half an hour later, it folded its wings and landed at the door of an underground prison with extremely strict security.

Faintly, I heard a female voice yelling:

"let me out!"

"The clown will come back and turn you all into female clowns, ha ha ha ha"

"Ho ho ho."

Although Byron felt that his aunt and her group, who were not harmful to society, should not be detained in such a place, he still turned around and went in based on the principle of not letting any corner go unpunished.

After taking a quick look around, he discovered that this underground prison was extremely large.

It not only holds human political prisoners from various countries, powerful mid-sequence transcendents, but also various [Cursed Spirits] that possess immortality.

Of course, the rules of the holy relics cannot be exempted. No matter who these people were originally, they have now all become "they".

Although many prisoners are two meters tall and two meters wide, with arms big enough for horses to run and fists big enough for people to stand on, and extremely abundant body hair, they are definitely women physiologically!

[Ship's Log] I have observed that not only the prisoners, but even the cockroaches and mosquitoes here are female.

"No, this one too, none of them."

The raven flapped its wings and shuttled quickly through the cell like a ghost.

Byron found many famous "big shots" here, but there was no trace of his aunt and others.

It was not until he entered the bottom level, which was also the last cell, that he was stunned.

It was not because he found any clues, but simply because the layout of this cell was far beyond his expectations.

Not only does it have two floors, occupying a much larger area than other cells, but it also has a small window that overlooks the blue sea outside.

The door is also made of thick cast iron, not an iron fence like others, which maximizes privacy.

The furniture was very luxurious, with a bathroom, dressing table, bookcase, desk, velvet bed, and even the nanmu wardrobe was filled with beautiful dresses.

It certainly can't be compared with the royal palace outside, but compared with other cells, this is simply the "King's Suite" among cells.

When Byron came in, the owner of the cell was bathing in a very "ungodly" manner.

There was a thick layer of foam and many fresh rose petals floating in the oak bathtub. Only a female head was visible above the water, with long black hair piled high behind her head.

But even when she was taking a bath, she was wearing a metal mask, making it impossible to see her true appearance.

"Huh? What's going on?"

When Byron wanted to use the [Logbook] to take a peek at the information, he found that he could read other people's information, but he couldn't read a single bit of her information.

After careful observation, I found that even my senses were confused when I looked at the other person. I couldn't even tell whether she was tall or short, fat or thin, beautiful or ugly.

Glancing around, I saw only a number 64389 engraved on the brass plate on the door, followed by a single word: "The Man in the Iron Mask."

This should be her code name in the underground prison.

When Byron saw this mysterious prisoner, he couldn't help but become curious.

“Strange, to be worthy of such a strong defense, his status and strength must be extraordinary, and he is definitely not an unknown person.

But she is locked up here and has lost her freedom. It must be that the church or other bigwigs don’t want her to go out.”

However, Byron's main goal this time is not to solve the puzzle, but to find his aunt.

Besides, the person was taking a shower so it was not convenient to look at him for too long, so he flapped his wings and turned away.

After he walked away, the [Iron-Masked Man] who was bathing slowly turned his head and looked in the direction he left.

After watching quietly for a long time, a pleasant female voice was heard in the cell:

"Oh, a male raven lurking in? It seems to be a species unique to the northern countries.

After more than a decade of boring life without any waves, it has finally become interesting recently. Is the chaos I am waiting for really coming? "

Although she claimed that she had been imprisoned for more than ten years, there was still a hint of girlish wit in her voice.

Moreover, she even broke through the limitation that Raven could not be observed by mid-sequence transcendents, which showed that her strength was extraordinary.

After leaving the cell, Byron activated [Echoes of History] and read some information about the Iron-Masked Man from the Transcendental Sisters on duty nearby:

“No. 64389 has lived here for more than ten years.

No one knew where she came from.

But he was elegant in manners and well-dressed, and did not look like a vicious criminal at all.

Even if she is entertaining herself without anyone to appreciate her life, she has extremely high demands on the quality of life and is unwilling to be perfunctory in any way.

She also enjoyed the best conditions in the cell, which was equipped with bookcases, paper, pens and other writing utensils to meet her daily reading needs.

The Man in the Iron Mask can choose his clothes according to his own preferences here. He does not have to wear prison uniforms. New clothes are delivered every season, and he has never been subjected to any punishment.

But there is one most stringent guarding rule that must be enforced:
'She can neither take off the mask herself nor be taken off by others. Anyone who does so will be sentenced to death.

She cannot voluntarily reveal her identity to anyone. Once she does, she and the listener will be sentenced to death. '"

Furthermore, no further information was obtained.

Byron could only be sure that the other party's identity should be very sensitive, and if there was a chance to let her out, he wouldn't mind going with the flow.

But there was no need for him to take the initiative to rescue the prisoner, who was just a passerby.

After flapping his wings and wandering around the monastery for most of the day, he finally found his aunt Margaret in a large courtyard.

She and several other aunts work here.

Productivity in the Old World was low, and it was not realistic to support a large number of full-time clergy. The nuns and priests in monasteries and most churches needed to work.

Even the major monastic orders once served as basic production units and became the backbone of productivity during the Dark Millennium.

Everyone here works together, shares risks and benefits.

It is said that the original intention of the church's top leaders to prohibit clergy from getting married was not because of the purity of faith, but simply to prevent the distribution of property resulting from marriage.

It is thanks to celibacy that the wealth accumulated by the church can be concentrated rather than dispersed, and passed down from generation to generation rather than disappearing.

Squeak! Squeak! .
There were dozens of women in the yard, each with a spinning machine in front of them, spinning the processed flax fibers into yarns.

Although they have lived here for more than a year and have become very skilled in spinning, they are limited by the backward tools and can only spin one thread at a time.

There is still a long way to go before the spinning machine revolution.

Margaret is 42 years old this year. She has always maintained herself in excellent condition and looks much younger than her actual age.

Even when working with his own hands, he exudes a sense of grace and elegance.

However, the information here is completely isolated from the outside world. Her understanding of the situation still remains at the point where the Lancaster clan was exterminated and only her nephew Byron escaped by chance and became a wanted criminal [Son of the Devil].

Then he was imprisoned in a monastery.

There was inevitably a kind of gloom in his eyes, which was more sorrowful than the despair of Edward's fiancée Anne Neville.

After all, the latter only lost her fiancé, but the former lost her husband, son, clan members and everything.

If she hadn't known that her nephew Byron, whom she had taken care of since childhood and with whom she had no less affection than her own son, was still alive and remained her last concern and anchor, she would probably have gone crazy by now.

It is naturally difficult to do the work well when one is distracted, and one may accidentally break the linen yarn in one's hand.

"what!"

Margaret finally came to her senses and knocked over the spinning machine in panic. She turned around and found an old nun with a mean face walking towards her quickly outside the field.

When she saw her face, Margaret instinctively felt a dull pain in her spine and realized that it was a conditioned reflex, the phantom pain caused by being hit by the thorns.

In fact, although the women of Lancaster had more freedom than the prisoners in the underground prison, there was no essential difference in their status.

Like those prisoners, they were always wearing law-breaking stone shackles, could not use any supernatural powers, and would be subject to various corporal punishments if they made mistakes.

The head nun who managed them was an extremely harsh person. She would scold and whip them if they made even the slightest mistake.

Although Margaret once had a noble status, she is now just an ordinary prisoner. Not only does she not receive any preferential treatment, but she can also clearly feel that she has been specifically targeted by the other party.

Corporal punishment and humiliation have become commonplace.

Over the past year or so, I have been whipped so many times that I can’t even count them.

It has almost become a conditioned reflex, and whenever I make a mistake I immediately feel a pain in my back.

Margaret remembered the time clearly. It had been a week since she was last punished.

The one-week gap is not because there were no mistakes, but because the other party left the monastery to visit relatives and just came back today.

“I want to live!

I have to live on no matter how hard it is. If I don't know Byron's current situation and how he lives alone, I won't be able to rest in peace even if I die."

Margaret clenched her fists in shame, feeling that she would inevitably be punished corporally this time.

Just when she was about to retract her neck subconsciously and prepare to be beaten, the subsequent developments were far beyond her expectations.

The mean head nun walked up to her and did not raise the whip to hit her as usual.

Instead, he helped her to lift up the spinning machine, and smiled at her in a flattering way:
"Your Majesty, did you hurt your hand?
How can you do such rough work with your status? You see, it's all my fault. Your hands are rough.

How about I recommend you and a few women from the Lancaster family to manage the library?
Newspapers are delivered there every day, so if you work in the library, you should be able to read the news outside every day. "

After all, Margaret had helped her husband manage a country. Instead of being flattered by his change, she became even more vigilant.

Hattings proverb: "A fox may turn gray, but never good."

I couldn't help but feel moved in my heart.

"Could it be that something happened outside during the week that the other party was away?!"

(End of this chapter)