?


    The thought ofnding a blow on his captor, even in his broken condition, brought a glimmer of defiance. He clung to this small spark of hope, like a flickering candle in a dark room, determined to make his mark despite the odds stacked against him.


    It was as if the very act of fighting back, no matter how feeble, was a deration that he wouldn''t go down without a fight, much like a cornered animal showing its teeth to the predator, ast stand of sheer determination.


    Above all else, he yearned to witness his captors tormented by frustration in his final moments. The thought of them grappling with helplessness, right before his eyes, was a bitter yet satisfying desire, a way to exert some semnce of control in the face of his impending fate.


    When ckbeard''s shameless cackle reached Bruce''s ears, he lost all restraint and instinctively delivered a powerful punch straight to ckbeard''s face, akin to the strike of a skilled closebat expert. The force of the blow carried the weight of Bruce''s frustration and anger, a cathartic release in the midst of their intense confrontation.


    ckbeard spat blood instantly but the defiance in his eyes didn''t vanish. Instead, he relished the pain evident on Bruce''s face andughed like a maniac who had nothing to be afraid of any longer.


    "She is... she is..." ckbeard deliberately feigned a state of distress, as if he could no longer speak, a cunning act designed to manipte the situation.


    In truth, he was fully capable of speaking, merely toying with Bruce, relishing the sight of him sinking into further misery. It was a calcted move, a psychological game, much like a cat ying with a wounded mouse, savoring the control he held over Bruce''s emotions.


    "Where is she? Where did you hide her? Is she here on the ind?" asked Bruce hurriedly, seeing that ckbeard wanted to tell him something. At the same time, he loosened his hold over the pirate a little bit to give him some breathing room.


    But ckbeardughed once again and replied, "She is...somewhere you will never find her...Hahahaha...you will spend the rest of your life...wondering...wondering where she might be...Hahahaha..."


    Bruce wanted to deliver another punch to the shameless pirate but held himself back fearing that the pirate would pass away on the next hit given his critical condition. He could only hope that Zach could find his sister''s location without ckbeard.


    Just as ckbeard began to enjoy Bruce''s misery, his gaze fell upon the imposing figure of the formidable dark mage, steadily advancing in his direction.


    Zach had never revealed his abilities in front of ckbeard before, leaving ckbeard uncertain about the full extent of Zach''s strength and the resources at his disposal. Consequently, a subtle sense of apprehension washed over ckbeard, a cautious wariness stemming from the uncertainty surrounding Zach.


    On the flip side, Zach had decided to put an end to his contemtion regarding the enigma of why the location marker was pointing to the pirate captain''s whereabouts instead of Diana''s, as it should have been.


    So, he devised a n to thoroughly search ckbeard''s body, looking for the location tracker and hoping to uncover the reason behind this unexpected discrepancy.


    At his indication, two soldiers came forward and pulled ckbeard to his feet as Zach scanned him from top to bottom in search of the headset that was sending the signal to him.


    After patting him thoroughly, he found something dangling from ckbeard''s back pocket. Its shape was awfully familiar, and Zach pulled on the chord to drag out the remaining portion of the headset that had always been with the pirate.


    What Zach had misunderstood as Diana''s whereabouts had actually been ckbeard''s location all along. This revtion pointed to the possibility that Diana was either still concealed somewhere on the ind, or the pirate captain had never taken her to the pirate ind in the first ce.


    This was the final piece of the puzzle that Zach needed to solve before he could take action against the pirates, who were now standing on the precipice of their ultimate fate.


    Previously Zach had been monitoring the location of the headset at all times and there had been no ce, other than that harbor, where ckbeard had ever stopped long enough to hide or to hand over Diana to someone else.


    Therefore, Zach was almost ny percent sure that Diana had been handed over to someone else at that harbor by ckbeard. The pirate was probably only bluffing now in order to find a way out for himself or to just see them acting desperate.


    Since the inception of thisplex scenario, where the Hunter family had embarked on a pursuit targeting the Windsor family, the context was self-contained, leaving no room for suspicion to extend beyond these two prominent entities. The origins of the conflict were firmly rooted within the interactions of these families, creating a narrow scope for other potential culprits or instigators.


    Furthermore, it was abundantly clear that no other faction or individual possessed a grudge substantial enough to go as far as to hire a pirate group tounch an assault on Greend. This marked a crucial point of distinction, as the desperation driving such a decision was uniquely attributed to the Hunter family.


    Their motives for attempting to eliminate this target stemmed from a tangible threat to their once-unchallenged dominion in Byzantium city. The ascendancy of the Windsor family, significantly bolstered by the covert support provided by Zach and his formidable forces operating surreptitiously, had be a significant force reshaping the city''s power dynamics.


    As the Windsor family rose, the Hunter family found themselves in a developmental stasis, a shift that caused great concern and, ultimately, led them to contemte extreme actions in an effort to regain their slipping grasp on authority.


    Since ckbeard was unwilling to answer any of their questions, Zach could only resort to trickery and the element of surprise in order to get the answers he needed.


    "So, the harbor was where you left her, huh?"mented Zach with a mysterious smile on his face and a tantalizing air of mystery enveloping him from all sides.


    Zach''s words held a veiled hint, a carefully ced breadcrumb in the trail of the conversation.


    Even though ckbeard tried to hide his shock at Zach''s correct inference of the situation, the stimtion of his muscles had already given him away.


    Zach had found the answer he had been looking for.


    Since Diana wasn''t on the ind, there was no need for any of the pirates to survive any longer. They had outlived their usefulness with thisst bit of information. The world would be a better ce without them since they could only offer blood and destruction to the world even if they managed to survive after he was done with them.


    ckbeard found himself stuck to the ground as Zach once again brough the radio to his mouth in order to issue another set of instructions.


    "Diana isn''t on the ind. She was never on the ind. The real culprit is someone else; someone who hired these pirates to do their dirty deed...to destroy our home. But these people don''t deserve our mercy. Being merciful to enemies is being cruel to ourselves. If we leave these pirates alive, they will definitelye to us to exact vengeance for their fallen brethren and our people will have to pay the price for the folly wemit today. So, listen to my orders very carefully. I want not even one of these pirates to survive, to tell the tale, or hold a grudge against us in any manner. Lay waste to this ind as they intended to do to our home. Fire up everything you have. Burn it down to the ground."


    The soldiers felt a me burning furiously inside them as they heard Zach''s orders on the radio.


    Bruce on the other hand was shocked at this revtion. He hade here to retrieve Diana from the clutches of the pirates. But as it turned out the group of pirates never had Diana in their grasp from the get-go. The pirate captain had been making fun of him all along, using his concern for his sister to make fun of him. But one thing he couldn''t figure out was that if Diana wasn''t on the ind, then where was she?