Swords, magic, and martial arts

"Please, just kill me!" the river pirate leader cried out in agony as he lay on the ground. His arm had been severed, and not only had the bleeding not stopped, but it had also been tortured by Quentin. Now, his face was pale, and he looked as if he could die at any moment.

"Take him to your ship to stop the bleeding first, then you can play with him slowly," Rod said. "I have some good ideas that I think he'll like. Baron, the torture device you mentioned last time was pretty good."

"What is 'branding iron'?" Baron asked in confusion.

"It's what you said about making someone climb on a bronze pillar and lighting a fire underneath it so he can feel the warmth." Rod winked at Baron.

"Where are you going to find a bronze pillar for you? Just give it to me, and I'll slowly peel its skin off." Baron understood Rod's meaning and cooperated.

Quentin picked up a rope and tied up the river pirate leader, then slowly used the rope to pull him onto his boat.

"What should we do with this ship?" Rod asked Quentin.

"Let me finish these things first." Quentin was in a bad mood, after all, only a dozen or so of his thirty-odd crew members survived. "I'll go arrange things on the ship, you guys go and interrogate him first."

If this happened to Rhodes, he felt he would definitely go crazy.

Rhodes followed Quentin back to the deck of the Flyer. The men who had come up to help earlier ran into the cabin, looking for some money.

Rhodes searched every room. These river pirates were poor; he didn't see a single gold coin. Rhodes casually took a few silver coins, but he was too lazy to take the copper coins.

The deck was littered with severed limbs. Misell and a few crew members were helping the wounded to bandage their wounds, while several others were weeping over the bodies of their dead brothers.

Upon seeing this scene, Baron turned around and kicked the river pirate leader on the ground. The river pirate leader was kicked into the air before falling heavily to the ground with a painful groan.

"Don't kick him to death, we still have questions for him," Rod reminded him.

He felt there might be other reasons behind this.

"Are you going to interrogate him?" Messil asked, standing up after bandaging a crew member's wound.

Rhodes nodded, took out the wooden carving, handed it to Messiah, and asked...

Do you know what this is?

Misell held the wooden carving in her hands, examining it for a long time, but couldn't discern anything. She closed her eyes, furrowed her brow, and tried to sense it with her mind.

"Forget it, let's just ask him directly." Misell said, opening her eyes. She returned the wooden carving to Rhodes, and a ball of golden light emerged from her hand and landed on the river pirate leader's forehead, completely disappearing into his head.

"From now on, you must tell the truth to whatever we ask," Messil said to the river pirate leader.

The river pirate leader nodded woodenly, his eyes completely lifeless, as if he had been hypnotized.

Misell looked at Rhodes and the others, indicating that they should ask them.

"As bandits, why do you prioritize murder over robbery?" Rhodes asked.

The river pirate leader seemed to have struggled with his thoughts before answering.

"We were forced into this situation. Each of us had to kill at least two people every month. If we didn't, we would be tortured."

"What torture did you suffer?" Rhodes asked immediately, holding up the wooden carving in his hand and asking again, "Is it this?"

The river pirate leader glanced at the wooden carving and nodded.

"How does it torment you?" Rod asked again.

"If anyone fails to complete the mission, black light will emanate from this wooden sculpture and enter their body. Then, that person will feel the pain of being devoured by countless rats until they complete the mission. Regardless of whether we complete the mission or not, we can only stay on this river," the river pirate leader replied.

"Why didn't you try to destroy this wood carving?" Baron asked.

"We tried chopping it with axes, burning it, leaving it on the shore and then quickly sailing away. No matter what we did, it eventually came back to me," the river pirate leader replied.

"This should be a token of some evil god, or you could say a divine object. They must have accidentally made a pact with that evil god at some point," Messil said from the side.

"Then can you destroy it?" Rhodes asked.

Misell shook her head. "I don't know. Let's keep asking him. The divine spell is about to wear off."

"Where did you obtain this statue?" Messil asked the river pirate leader.

"We used to be just ordinary mercenaries. Then we found a treasure map on a corpse. This treasure map led us to this river. We inquired around along the river, and in a tavern, we learned that the destination of this treasure map might be the River Pirate King's treasure. Finally, after going through countless hardships, we found the location of the treasure. Inside, besides countless treasures, there was this wooden carving. After we moved all the treasure out, we found that all the treasure had disappeared, leaving only this wooden carving and the curse it brought..." the River Pirate King said blankly.

"Give him a quick death," Quentin said from the side. He had just returned here after dealing with matters on the ship.

Baron nodded, picked up a swift sword, and deftly severed the river pirate leader's head.

It's so hot. Even if we don't kill him now, he'll die from an infected wound unless Messiah heals him with divine magic.

However, this is obviously impossible.

"Let's think of a way to get rid of this wood carving," Rod said.

Baron picked up his sword and slashed at the wooden carving, splitting it in two, only to have it spring back to its original shape.

"Can your divine magic destroy it?" Baron turned to look at Misel.

"I'll give it a try," Misell said, and a beam of light appeared in the middle of her palm. The beam shone on the wooden carving, destroying it.

However, the wood carving reappeared after only a short while.

"I can't either. The owner of this wooden carving was just a creature who fantasized about collecting faith and souls to become a god. Although its power may not be as great as that Night King, the material of this wooden carving is very special. It contains a lot of souls and resentment. Didn't you destroy such divine objects before?" Messil looked at Rhodes.

Rod picked up his sword and slashed at the wooden carving, but just like Baron's, it was first split in two and then restored to its original shape.

He recalled the time when the divine mask was destroyed, when black flames erupted from the "Disaster of the Wise" before the sword cleaved through the protective shield and mask of the Death God priest.

He'd barely used Black Flame, so now he could only try "The Wise Man's Calamity."

After that battle, "The Wise Man's Calamity" was burned beyond repair by black flames. Then, Hammer, who was bored and kept dozing off during his journey, took the remains to study and kept them there. Rhodes had almost forgotten about it.

"Is Hammer awake? I'll go down and check on him."

……