Elemental Cats

Nester's chain blocked Red Hook's Blood Spear. But only for a moment. Red Hook might not be as strong as Dristel was, but she was still a mage at the ninth level, and when she used a spell, it would understandably be more powerful than when an eighth level mage used a spell, even if that mage was burning through all their mana and life force to power that spell.

Nester's spell was also wide-range, so compared to the concentrated power of Red Hook's Blood Spear, the power of a single chain link was nothing.

The Blood Spear tore through the chain before finally reaching Nester and exploding his brain in bloody gore.

After Nester died, his tornado of swirling chains quickly slowed down to a complete stop, after which they completely dissipated, leaving Nester's headless corpse to fall back down onto the ship.

With the chains and Nester no longer blocking the path forward, the two sailboats got a view of the Starsling Kingdom's flagship. The deck was pretty torn and bruised with scorch marks and slashes all over. There was also a mast on the verge of breaking. However, none of them cared about the structural integrity of the boat.

The cats and the Bunglehoppers were mostly worried about Toz and his wellbeing. And the Representative and Red Hook looked for Dristel.

The Representative and Red Hook had no reason to trust Toz's strength and didn't think he would actually be able to fight against Dristel, so they were ready to team up and finish Dristel. They had sensed the power of Taienra's attack and knew that they had a chance against Dristel if he took that blow head-on.

However, their eyes widened in surprise when they saw the scene on the ship. The Representative managed to keep his jaw from dropping, but Red Hook's reaction made her surprise evident.

"What the fuck?"

The Bunglehoppers and the cats ignored the two pirate leader's surprise since they saw Toz state and steered the boats toward the ship even faster than before.

Stitches and the other pirates had jumped off the boats before they even bumped against the ship. The barrier that Toz struggled to break apart melted in front of the Representative's outstretched hand.

Stitches didn't care about whether or not Dristel was alive and dashed forward to help Toz. Even if Dristel had been totally fine and on the verge of attacking the down and injured Toz, Stitches believed that Wulf and the other Bunglehoppers would have his back.

Stitches slid to his knees next to Toz's body, but he didn't rashly begin playing around with Toz's life force. If he did something without knowing what caused the injury or if there were any hidden ailments, Stitches could worsen the situation.

Toz had been ready to defend against Nester when the chains rattled and moved, but when the Bunglehoppers and the cats came to his rescue, relief washed over him, threatening to put him to sleep. However, he forced himself to stay awake and help Stitches drive the wind aura out of his body.

With Toz and Stitches working together, it didn't take long to push and pull the wind aura Dristel left in Toz's body out of Toz. Since there wasn't much to do for Toz after that, he sat back and let Stitches begin to regenerate the emptiness in his abdomen.

It was a significant injury, but there wasn't anything that was missing, just a bunch of damaged tissue and organs.

Stitches would have usually found it challenging to work on someone with so much and such dense mana as Toz. However, since Toz was awake and had excellent control over his mana, he could reduce his body's natural resistance to outside influence and let Stitches do his job without obstruction.

The cats tipped around anxiously at first, but when they saw how quickly Toz's wound was regenerating, their worry for Toz turned into rage toward Dristel. Toz would have happily let them finish him if it weren't for the two pirate leaders, who seemed pretty keen on the same thing. He also had something he wanted to ask Dristel, but if that didn't work out, he still had Stris, so it was whatever.

After everyone's arrival, Dristel had somehow managed to get his pain partly under control, but he wasn't in a state where he could fight back, and he looked like he had resigned himself to his fate. Thanks to Toz's fire magic cauterizing his wound shut, he wouldn't die anytime soon. At least not from blood loss related to his missing arm. So Toz and the others could take their time deciding what to do.

The Representative and Red Hook looked hesitantly at each other, Dristel and Toz, alternatingly. Neither of them knew Toz before their individual meetings with him, and both had thought or planned to betray him as soon as their agreements were no longer beneficial to them. But Toz had still saved their lives by pulling the ground out from under them and teleporting them to the back of the giant forest-covered whale. He had also saved Pirate Haven and their subordinates by splitting up the Starsling Kingdom's fleet.

Toz had also managed to defeat Dristel, something the Representative and Red Hook were ready to team up to do. It was with a fine margin if they used the scene of battle to judge, but he had still done it, proving his strength and allowing him to stand on equal footing with them, despite his level.

The Representative and Red Hook might not have spent so much time in contemplation if Toz had been alone since it would be easy to get rid of Toz, who would surely become a competitor for the resources of Pirate Haven in the future.

The Bunglehoppers' presence forced the two pirate leaders to reconsider. If they still decided to try and get rid of any and all competition and share Pirate Haven between themselves, they would have to first fight and defeat all the Bunglehoppers, the cats, and Taienra, who had destroyed half a fleet on her own.

Taienra wouldn't be able to interfere much in the battle, but she could easily escape and come back another day to take revenge. But even without that, if the Representative and Red Hook took too long when defeating the Bunglehoppers, they might be too slow and come back to a Pirate Haven conquered by the other half of the Starsling Kingdom's navy.

The Representative and Red Hook agreed that it would be better to foster a positive relationship with Toz and the Bunglehoppers. So they decided to let them deal with Dristel and the spoils of war before borrowing one of the sailboats and turning toward Pirate Haven to help their subordinates.

Toz and the others happily saw them off since the two pirate leaders were dangerous to keep close. They were powerful and couldn't be trusted, and Toz was injured.

As leaders of their own pirate crews, both the Representative and Red Hook had magic items to help guide them through the Void, so finding their way back to Pirate Haven was not an issue for them.