pain!
Unspeakable pain!
Byron felt as if an iron cone had penetrated his chest. He was cold and weak, as if something precious was passing through the hole quickly.
So much so that every nerve was twitching violently, emitting overwhelming wails and screams.
But he himself couldn't wake up at all, and was trapped in a long dream.
And in that dream, there were two selves and two completely different lives.
The first one was born in an orphanage, living in reality but harboring a dream of traveling around the world.
Unfortunately, I had only been working for a few years, and before I could save enough travel expenses, I suddenly suffered from a rare disease - ALS!
Starting from the upper limbs, he gradually lost all body functions. In just a few years, he was unable to move, speak, swallow, or even breathe on his own.
Until the body turns into a cage imprisoning the soul, and a person dies alone, helpless and desperate.
Although the other self lost his mother when he was born, he had a strict but kind father and a large family with harmonious relations.
An uncle who suffers from intermittent mental illness but is wise and kind most of the time;
A beautiful and gentle aunt who treats her like a biological son;
The cousin who often takes him hunting and practices swordsmanship, riding, and navigation; the childhood sweetheart who spends the whole day chasing chickens and chasing dogs instead of doing his job;
There are also many united and friendly family members; loyal vassals, vassals, and guardian knights...
What's annoying is that the two lives in this dream are like being separated by thick frosted glass, blurred from the beginning.
It was like seeing flowers in the fog, so Byron could not recall any details.
I just vaguely remember that I seemed to have been hit hard in a huge accident not long ago.
The huge "memory palace" that constitutes the personality in the mind is missing a crucial piece out of thin air and falls into a chain collapse.
The accidental exposure of the first period of his life that had been serving as the foundation helped him barely hold the "palace" from falling, but it also fell into complete chaos.
He is now like a small boat that has lost its anchor, drifting with the current in the torrent of broken memories, at a loss as to what to do.
Apart from deep-rooted instincts and common sense, even self-awareness is almost blurred.
I don’t know how long it took, but there was only one most memorable scene left in Byron’s mind:
On a stormy night.
At the foot is a majestic ship with a huge blue dragon [Bowl Statue] placed on the bow, which is comparable in size to a mountain.
The father in this life was talking to himself anxiously, but he could only see his mouth opening and closing, and could not hear any sound at all.
Immediately, the cold and deep sea water completely submerged everything...
Byron subconsciously felt that this might be the key to the incident.
But the harder I try to hold on, the faster these memories are lost.
"Who am I? What happened on that stormy night? Where did the rest of the family go?..."
at this time.
Wow!
A large basin of cold sea water splashed into his face, causing him to wake up suddenly from the nightmare.
But he didn't notice at all that the moment he opened his eyes, an undetectable light flashed across his right eye, which was as blue as the sea.
Slowly raising his head, Byron was shocked to find that he was with a group of soaked rats, their hands and feet tied up with ropes behind their backs.
Lying on the deck of a wooden sailboat in a very embarrassed posture!
Several ragged sailors with fierce faces were standing condescendingly in front of him.
The leader was a burly man two meters tall, with a sailor's scimitar and flintlock musket hanging on his waist, and his whole body was filled with the cold and bloody smell.
He picked up a wine bottle and took a big gulp of rum, and said impatiently:
"You pigs don't lie down on the deck and pretend to be dead.
Those babies raised by the captain don't like to eat motionless corpses. Get up and don't cause trouble for us. "
Hearing this, Byron, who was huddled in the crowd, felt his heart sink and glanced around vaguely.
The traces of swords, axes and bullets on the half-man-high bulwarks are very fresh, and the golden bronze cannons on the open deck especially smell of gunpowder smoke.
There is dirty blood left in the cracks of the deck that has not been wiped clean...
As far as the eye can see, sailors in ragged but strong bodies are busy retying broken sail ropes, repairing the damaged hull after the sea battle, or rescuing the wounded.
And on the top of the sailboat's mast, there was a pirate flag hanging high on a black background with a white skull riding a shark!
There is no doubt that this is a pirate ship that has just experienced a fierce bloody battle.
At most one nautical mile to the stern of the ship, in the hazy milky white mist, a dilapidated merchant ship that had been damaged by gunfire was burning and sinking into the sea.
It seems that after launching a stubborn resistance to counterattack the pirate ship, it still failed to escape the fate of being looted and massacred.
The blood flag hanging high on the mast of the pirate ship also proves this.
That's a sign of bloodbathing the enemy ships without leaving a trace behind!
Theoretically, in order to deter merchant ships that dare to resist them, this bloody execution will be resolutely carried out by pirates, with almost no exceptions!
Combined with the pirate leader's words, Byron's heart suddenly skipped a beat and he realized that something was wrong.
"I became a prisoner of a group of pirates? What kind of pets do I want to feed?"
Most of the merchant sailors who survived the robbery around him were old sea dogs who had been at sea for many years, and their sense of crisis was more acute than him.
It also became clearer how ferocious and violent this pirate gang named [Man-eating Shark], which was active in the North Sea, was.
Regardless of the bloody wounds on their bodies, they all knelt down and begged for mercy:
"Mr. Bone Broken, it was the captain who ordered the resistance. We have all surrendered. Please, don't kill us!"
"Spare me! I am the gunner of the Pelican and a technical crew member. I am willing to join the Man-Eater Shark!"
"..."
The leader of the pirates, who was also the first mate of the pirate ship, "Bonebreaker" Miles, was not moved at all.
He took another big sip of rum snatched from the merchant ship and showed a cold and scary smile:
“It’s really unfortunate.
Except for the cook on your ship who is said to have served the nobles, he stabbed your captain in the back and got a chance to prove his worth.
No one else is qualified to bask in the kindness of Captain [Blood Eyes].
Stop talking nonsense, those little things should be waiting impatiently, let’s send them down! "
After saying that and waving his hands, a group of ferocious pirates immediately stepped forward and dragged the prisoners who were about to wet their pants from the deck.
Sentenced to death without mercy by the pirates, many sailors suddenly suffered a nervous breakdown.
"You maggots on the sea, and that despicable traitor will not end well!"
"I pray to the legendary ghost ship to take away my soul. The undead on the sea will one day take revenge on the living!
God will not forgive you! "
"..."
Some cursed, some cursed, and some took the time to pray to God.
The old sailor walking beside Byron had his teeth chattering:
"O Almighty Creator! We should not obey the captain's order and go to sea at this time.
What does the war for the throne of the Kingdom of Hattings have to do with little sailors like us?
Even if Red Rose's Lancaster family is defeated, our Pelican Chamber of Commerce will only be their vassal.
With your powerful protection, the White Rose York family that has successfully ascended to power will definitely not do anything to us..."
Byron, who had been confused about the situation, finally pieced together the whole story from the emotional catharsis of these sailors before they died.
This ordinary maritime robbery took place in the North Sea off the coast of the Old Continent.
In the nearby island country of the Kingdom of Hetings, two major families with red and white roses as their coat of arms have been fighting for the throne for thirty years.
Some time ago, these two great nobles with the right to inherit the throne once again brought their respective vassals to fight with blood on land and sea.
In the middle of the night five days ago, a rare strong storm suddenly hit the battlefield of the naval battle between the two sides - the Dover Strait at the southernmost tip of the North Sea.
The battle for the throne between White Rose and Red Rose was completely decided.
All the male members of the Red Rose Lancaster family, which originally occupied the throne of Hattings, disappeared in the storm!
Even the first-class ship [Blue Dragon King] on which the previous king Henry VI was aboard sank in the sea.
The nobles and merchants who were originally attached to Lancaster were worried that they would be liquidated by the new king and kept fleeing.
Some fled to other countries on the continent along the North Sea, while others simply went to overseas colonies that were in full swing.
The merchant ship Pelican had set out from Hattings two days earlier, carrying part of the family fortune of Lord Crawford, a Lancastrian.
The destination is the colonial Bantaan Islands in the south.
However, he unexpectedly encountered the "Man-Eating Shark" here, and was suddenly robbed by this group of brutal pirates, and his escape journey came to an abrupt end.
Byron himself was a "wrecked man" fished out of the sea when the Pelican passed by the outer waters of the Strait of Dover, the original battlefield.
No one knew his identity, including the captain, who had perished with the ship.
At this moment, I became a prisoner of pirates together with the crew of the Pelican.
"Red and White Rose, Blue Dragon King, Lancaster..."
Listening to this information, Byron's eyes gradually became distracted.
The wandering and chaotic memories in my mind seemed to be anchored by these few words.
Faces, either clear or blurred, gradually appeared in front of his eyes.
Especially among the interplay of blood and fire, a blazing red rose emblem is particularly eye-catching.
Warmth, admiration, love, regret...all kinds of intense emotions surged up, making his heart throb.
"ah--!"
In his ears, a shrill scream suddenly shook his eardrums.
Byron shook his body and came back to his senses.
He suddenly looked up and saw that the bloody execution on the pirate ship had begun!
On the forecastle of the pirate ship, a group of burly and fierce pirates were working together to drag a strong long rope from the starboard side to the port side.
A bare-chested sailor was also dragged from the bottom of the water through the keel covered with sharp parasitic barnacles, and then was violently pulled out of the water from the other side.
The whole process was like being cut into pieces by a thousand cuts, with countless bloody and bone-deep horrific wounds all over his body.
The sailor just screamed, and before he could take a breath, he was dragged from the water to the other side.
After going back and forth two or three times, the body was in tatters and was no longer human-like. Even the water near the bow of the ship was filled with a thick blood color.
This is one of the most terrifying punishments for sailors at sea - dragging the keel!
What's even more chilling is that, as if summoned by the smell of blood, a large black shark fin that looks like a blade suddenly rises from the sea!
They draw white lines on the sea and swarm them in the blink of an eye.
Obviously this is the pet kept by the captain of the [Man-Eating Shark] as mentioned by First Officer Miles.
At the same time, another long wooden board stretched out from the side of the ship.
A group of pirates wielding scimitars drove a few merchant sailors who had their hands and feet tied, and moved little by little to the end of the plank.
Not forgetting to make bloody wounds on their bodies.
Whether they were praying or cursing, the sailors finally missed the mark and fell screaming into the surging waves.
After a bloody scramble, they all disappeared on the sea.
Seeing their companions being killed by sharks one after another, despair spread among the remaining sailors.
This helplessness of having to watch and wait for one's execution is simply maddening.
Some experienced old seals have realized that these pirates are not simply executing them, but are performing an extremely cruel blood sacrifice ceremony!
"Compared to that rubber boy who plays house, this is the true face of a pirate!"
Byron, who was standing at the end of the sailors with an equally ugly face, subconsciously said something that left others, and even himself, confused.
He was roughly pushed onto the long and narrow springboard by the pirates.
Just a few feet away from your feet are surging bloody waves and dozens of bloody mouths with sharp teeth!
Smelling the pungent smell of blood, Byron's scalp felt numb.
If nothing happens, he may never have the chance to retrieve his memory and discover the lost truth.
