"Huff, huff!"
Filia was running.
His steps were unsteady, lurching deep and shallow with each stride, looking clumsy and disheveled.
Beneath his feet came a pliant, yielding sensation.
The ground of Black Lake Island was no longer solid; it had turned into something like the flesh and blood of a living creature.
Every time Filia's foot came down, the ground would writhe upward, trying to seize him and drag him in.
This forced him to wrench his legs free with every step, slowing him down considerably.
It wasn't only the ground. Most everything on Black Lake Island had undergone some horrific distortion.
Every plant had withered and shriveled in an instant, as though all its life force had been drained away. Every insect had died stiff in place.
Every beast lay paralyzed on the ground, or was tearing at its own flesh, drenched in blood.
In such an environment, many of the pirates had likewise fallen into madness.
Some pirates laughed uncontrollably, and even as they laughed, they drew their knives and hacked at their own necks, again and again, feeling neither exhaustion nor pain, until they had completely severed their own heads.
Some pirates lost all reason and became pure beasts, giving themselves over to the most primal desires, pouncing on the companions beside them and tearing madly at their throats with their teeth.
Still others wailed in despair, as though they had seen or heard some forbidden knowledge that must never be known, and clawed out their own eyes, drove things into their own ears to deafen themselves.
God of the Sea!
Filia felt his scalp prickle.
He didn't dare imagine whether the same disaster might befall him. He simply ran with the other panicking pirates, fleeing the island with everything he had.
Just a few minutes ago, the mood on the island had still been festive.
Ordinary pirates had no part in the meetings of the kings and generals, but they had their own amusements: drinking, trading goods, and no shortage of brawls and quarrels. All in all, it had been lively in the extreme.
But then the island had suddenly been struck by a terrible catastrophe. The pirate gathering had instantly turned into a killing field, and every mind held only one thought: flee, now!
"Fwoosh!"
Just then, not far ahead of Filia, something bizarre suddenly burst up out of the ground, exposed to the open air!
It looked like a great tree dripping with blood, its crown thick with brilliant red flowers, vines hanging down like tentacles of flesh.
Embedded in the center of the trunk was a strange puppet figure, complete with mouth and eyes, all sealed shut with black thread.
Those things, half vine and half tentacle, seemed to have a life of their own, and they lunged at the pirates with startling speed.
"Aaaaahhh!"
The pirates at the front couldn't dodge in time. The vines wrapped around them at once, and amid their agonized screams they were torn apart, limb from limb.
Mouths grew along the vines, snatching and devouring the pieces of the corpses from one another. Those that failed to claim any flesh immediately turned their attention to the survivors.
There was more than one such tree of flesh and blood.
Twisted, grotesque shapes like it had sprung up all over Black Lake Island, their tentacles reaching out endlessly, greedily seizing the pirates' lives.
"By the storm!"
"Run! Run for it!"
"Save me, I don't want to die yet!"
The pirates fled in despair, some driven mad by the warped surroundings, others caught and torn apart by the trees of flesh. Their numbers dwindled rapidly.
But not every pirate was so pitiful.
"Whoosh, whoosh!"
Alger Wilson spread his hand, and several sharp blades of wind sliced through the air, cutting apart all the fleshy vines blocking the way ahead.
"Everyone, follow me! Back to the ship, we're getting out of here now!"
He shouted back at his crew.
Like him, many of the pirates who were Beyonders were also calling on their own abilities, rallying their subordinates, and rushing toward the docks at the shore.
Their ships all waited there. Once aboard, they could escape this deadly island!
"What a horrifying scene... What in the world happened?"
Even as he fled, Alger kept turning it over in his mind. "Timed to strike at exactly this moment. It looks like a deliberate attack."
He couldn't help but feel that whoever was behind this had to be utterly insane, reckless beyond reason.
After all, this gathering included four kings and five generals, as well as that fellow called Temperance, meaning there were at least four demigods here, five Sequence 5s, and one existence whose combat strength defied classification.
How dare the mastermind behind this even attempt it!
With that thought, Alger instinctively glanced back over his shoulder.
He froze.
The whole island had descended into chaos and madness. Two battles were unfolding at once, one at the center of the lake and one along the shore.
Above the center of Black Lake, dense dark clouds were gathering, and some vast, soul-chilling sense of dread was rapidly brewing. Meanwhile, at the battle by the shore, the Admiral of Blood was being chased down by the other four pirate generals.
Had there been a falling out among them?
No, that couldn't be right. At a moment of such crisis, how could there possibly be infighting, unless the other generals had already decided that the Admiral of Blood was their enemy!
Sharp minded as ever, Alger needed only an instant to work out the situation. He immediately turned his gaze away and shouted at his men, "Faster! Move faster!"
The Admiral of Blood alone would never have had the nerve to do something like this, nor the power to achieve an effect this terrifying.
It had to be the force behind him, the Rose School of Thought, pulling the strings!
If this involved a heretical cult and an evil god, then the danger far exceeded anything Alger had imagined.
Whatever the kings and the Blood Reverends chose to do about it, his own best move was clear: get back to the ship, and get as far away as possible!
"Hmph."
Just then, a stern, low voice suddenly rang out from the lake at the center of the island, and in an instant it echoed across the entire stretch of sea.
A strange sense of distortion spread outward, and the trees of flesh and blood that had been growing so wantonly all suddenly froze, as though struck by some invisible terror, their menace draining away in an instant.
"The King of the Five Seas has made his move!"
Among the pirates who had survived, one cried out in excitement, his face lit with joy. "We're saved, we're..."
"Splat!"
Before he could finish, the vine that had gone still suddenly snapped back to life and lashed out viciously.
The smile was still spread across his face even as his head went flying high into the air, joining the rest of his shattered body as fresh meat for the great tree.
And even as the pirates were plunged back into panic, high above Black Lake, someone was letting out a twisted, gleeful laugh.
It was an elderly man with thinning white hair, deep lines etched into his face, his skin faintly tanned.
Shanks, demigod of the Rose School of Thought!
His body had already undergone a horrifying transformation.
Countless fine vines wove in and out beneath his skin, yet his face showed not the slightest trace of pain, only a fevered, ecstatic smile.
"Nast, your ability has no effect on me!"
This mere Sequence 4 demigod shouted down at the several Sequence 3s below him, his eyes brimming with madness. "I have already received the Mother Tree's blessing! Praise the Mother Tree!"
The black clouds gathered above his head thickened further, hanging heavy and low.
Something was coming.