Free Web NovelChapter 110: Duke’s Last Receipt
Wood groaned against unburnable cedar as the black flagship bit the flank of The Leviathan’s Forge.
"Hold the hausers!" Brak roared from the lower rigging.
Kane didn’t bother waiting for the boarding planks to drop.
Scaling the hot exterior steam pipes of the enemy behemoth, he hauled his scarred frame upward hand-over-hand.
Thora climbed to his immediate left, her twin axes hooked to her hips, while Seraphine matched his pace to the right, her silver broadsword reflecting the burning surf below.
They vaulted over the iron gunwale together, landing dead inside the elevated command tier of the Menual flagship.
Standing in the center of the reinforced deckboards was the Iron Duke.
The man was encased in pressurized alchemical power-armor, looking more like an iron vault than a soldier.
Mounted directly to his back boiler was a multi-barreled repeating shrapnel cannon, its primary gears already clicking into alignment.
"You degenerate mountain scavengers!" the Duke bellowed, his face turning an apoplectic purple behind his tempered glass visor.
"I’m the hand of the Chancellor! I bought this coastline!"
"Your currency is no good here," Kane rumbled.
Stepping casually into the open circle of deckboards, he didn’t even draw his daggers yet.
He simply stood there, rolling his broad shoulders to loosen the corded muscle.
Whirrrrr.
The multi-barreled cannon spun into lethal motion.
’Plated pneumatic joints always sacrifice lateral mobility,’ Kane figured instantly, his eyes tracking the primary regulator on the Duke’s lower spine.
’Turn him sideways, and he is just an expensive turtle.’
[Skill Activated: Minor Vigor]
Dropping his center of balance, Kane blurred beneath the horizontal storm of lead shrapnel that chewed the wooden railing behind him to splinters.
He slid across the blood-slicked iron boards on his shins, driving the heels of his boots straight into the Duke’s ankle-actuators.
CLANG.
The high-pressure joint buckled instantly.
As the behemoth pitched erratically forward, waving its cannon arms to catch its balance, Kane locked his knees together to form a solid platform.
"First Blade!" Kane roared.
Seraphine didn’t hesitate.
Using his bare, tattooed shoulders as a literal vaulting springboard, her boots pushed off his bicep.
She launched herself entirely over the stumbling aristocrat in a brilliant arc of white linen, driving her silver broadsword straight down into the primary steam-regulator behind the Duke’s neck.
SHHHHK.
Pneumatic pressure shrieked like a dying animal.
Superheated mist vented out of the severed tubes, instantly freezing the internal gears solid and locking the Iron Duke inside his own iron prison.
Stepping up to the paralyzed suit, Kane wedged his fingers beneath the rim of the visor.
With a single, uncompromising wrench of his bicep, he ripped the tempered glass completely off the helmet, exposing the Duke’s pale, wildly sweating face.
"Wait! Listen to me!" the Duke gasped, his eyes darting frantically between them.
"We can broker a treaty! I have gold in the capital—"
Seraphine stepped up to his right side, her silver eyes glowing with pure, unadulterated vengeance.
"For the border rowers you burned," she whispered.
Her broadsword sank straight down through the Duke’s right collarbone, pinning him to the internal lining of the suit.
At the same millisecond, Kane caught the left side of the man’s armored bicep with his bare hand, unhooking Mjoldr with his right.
A single, ruthless horizontal snap of cold crimson steel bit clean through the left neck-plating.
’Told her we would split him,’ Kane gathered as the Iron Duke’s command structure terminated.
’I always keep my promises.’
The ringing silence of the upper tier lasted exactly one heartbeat.
Seraphine released her hilt, her chest heaving wildly against the frozen iron of the Duke’s shoulder.
She didn’t look down at the kill; she looked across the severed armor straight into Kane’s face, her pupils dilated and swimming in a feverish, feral high fueled entirely by the execution.
Letting Mjoldr drop to hang by its wrist-tether, Kane caught her waist with both calloused hands, hauling her straight over the Duke’s shoulder and pinning her back hard against the iron smokestack.
"You owe me a flagship, gladiator," she breathed, her voice ragged and hot against his chin.
"I just gave you the biggest one in the ocean," Kane rumbled low.
He didn’t give her a chance to offer a witty retort. freёwebnovel.com
His mouth captured hers in a bruising, demanding claim that tasted of sea salt, blood, and battlefield triumph.
Seraphine let out a small, desperate whimper into his throat, leaning her solid curves entirely into his thighs as her tongue pushed past his teeth, slick and frantic. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
She wrapped her arms securely around his neck, her fingers tangling deep into his messy red hair, pulling his head down to increase the rough, breathless friction until her knees visibly shook against his shins.
’Doing this between fights does feel good.’
"There you go cheating again," Thora laughed savagely, leaning her hip against the opposite railing as she pointed an axe toward the outer bay.
"Let me join you two."
Breaking the kiss, Kane kept his arm wrapped like an iron band around Seraphine’s flushed, trembling waist and pulled Thora into another.
Out across the churning bay, the remaining twenty Menual ironclads had completely cut their steam engines.
White linen surrender flags fluttered frantically from their tall masts.
Down on the primary deck of the black flagship, Commander Kaelia looked up at the command bridge, cupping her hands around her mouth.
"Lord Kane! They are yielding the bay! The captains are throwing their weapons overboard!"
Kane didn’t drop his axe.
Raising his free right hand, he pointed his calloused index finger straight up at the glowing blue System interface hovering like a permanent sun above the bay.
"Read the blue text, Commander," Kane ordered coldly, his uncompromising voice echoing off the water.
"No surrender permitted. Sink every single piece of iron."
Kaelia blinked, a slow, highly satisfied smirk taking over her red-haired features. She spun toward her helmsmen.
"Rowers! Intercept the escape boats! Leave nothing floating!"
Black galleons surged forward like wolves among penned cattle.
Prows systematically punched through the stationary iron hulls, running down the frantic rowboats trying to reach the sandy banks.
By midday, the cannons were dead silent.
The white surf of Sylvandar’s royal bay had turned a deep, opaque crimson, choked with floating Menual cedar and empty breastplates.
On the shoreline, Queen Sylva walked slowly down the ruined marble steps of her palace terraces.
Her platinum crown caught the noon sun.
She stopped right at the water’s edge, staring up at the blood-soaked, bare-chested gladiator standing on the high prow of the captured behemoth.
Looking at the man who had just dismantled a global superpower’s navy before lunch, the Elven Queen experienced a profound, genuine terror.
She hadn’t just hired a border guard but a godly warrior.
[Urgent Regional Quest Complete: The Sunken Crown]
[Objective Extermination: 100/100]
[Reward: 50,000 Gold Coins | +10,000 Bloodfang Faction Renown]
[Special Title Acquired: Sovereign of the Black Tides — Grants absolute naval authority within linked territorial waters.]
