69novels Chapter 218: F3 WITHOUT LIMIT (1)
Chapter 218: F3 WITHOUT LIMIT (1)
[Boat — South Deck — 4:22 AM]
The captain’s reinforcements arrived in five minutes.
Not more boats.
The nine Red Bones ships approached simultaneously — the containment formation becoming an assault formation, the hulls closing the distance to the team’s boat until the space between them was enough to jump directly from deck to deck.
And they jumped.
Sixty additional pirates — the best from each ship, the ones who had been waiting while the forty from the first assault tested the team’s defenses. Levels between 78 and 88. No lesser Marks — these didn’t need them. They had maritime techniques developed over decades, enchantments carved into their bodies like scars, and the coordination of people who had fought together long enough to anticipate a comrade’s movement before it happened.
One hundred pirates in total now.
On a boat designed for four people.
The deck space that had allowed each flank to operate relatively independently disappeared. The fight became a mass of bodies moving in all directions, the flanks collapsing toward the center, the team’s four units being pushed into the same zone by sheer weight of numbers.
"They’re converging!" shouted Maya from the north deck.
"I see it," said Kira, Predator’s Sense mapping the hundred bodies simultaneously. "They’re deliberately compressing us."
"For what?"
"So the Fragments can’t operate with space." Kira. "In compressed space, F3 can’t use Army of Bones without hurting its own side. F2 can’t make full arcs. F6—"
"F6 doesn’t discriminate," said Jessica from the west flank. Her voice arriving without urgency. "Entropy acts in a radius. If they compress me, the radius includes everyone."
"Allies too?"
"Allies too."
Two seconds of silence.
"Then we need space," said Raven.
---
Raven looked at the sixty additional pirates arriving on deck.
She looked at her south flank — which was no longer just the south, which was now the south and the center and part of the east because the pirates who had pushed Seraph from the east flank were spilling into the boat’s center.
She looked at her sixteen marine skeletons.
The sixteen marine skeletons operating in the water alongside the boat — perfect in the ocean, useful on deck, but limited by the space the deck gave them.
*The problem isn’t the number,* Raven thought.
*The problem is that we’re fighting on their ground.*
She looked at the water.
*We’re the ones who should be taking them to the right ground.*
---
"I need you to push the fight off the boat," said Raven.
"How?" said Emily from the north.
"By pushing." Raven. "Any pirate who reaches the deck — off the deck. It doesn’t matter how. Into the water, into the boats, onto another ship. Off."
"And you?"
Raven looked at the ocean.
"I’m going where they’re most vulnerable."
---
[F3 — Soul Manipulation — maximum expansion]
Raven didn’t activate F3 at thirty percent.
Not at fifty.
Full F3.
The green flames in Raven’s eyes reached the brightness the team had seen only once before — in the Academy corridor, when Raven had entered the south corridor with her scythe and ninety skeletons.
That brightness.
But more.
Because in the Academy corridor, Raven had operated F3 thinking about Alex, about the team, about not causing collateral damage.
In the ocean, there was no collateral.
Only the water.
And the water was Raven’s territory now.
---
Army of Bones responded.
Not the sixteen marine skeletons that were already active.
F3 extended to its maximum had a summoning radius that Raven had never fully used because on land the radius was larger than any space she had ever fought in before.
In the ocean, the radius was limited only by what was in the water.
And in the water, there was a lot.
The remains of marine creatures that had died in this area of the ocean. Bones at the bottom at various depths. Exoskeleton fragments. Skeletal structures of things that had lived and died at this point in the ocean for centuries.
All responded to F3.
[Army of Bones — maximum expansion — active summoning]
[Active units: 16 → 34 → 67 → 89 → 112]
One hundred twelve skeletons.
Not on the boat — in the water. Emerging from the bottom, from the sides, from beneath the Red Bones’ boats, from beneath the hulls of the nine ships that had closed in for the assault.
The pirates who had jumped from their ships to the team’s boat looked back.
Their ships were surrounded by marine skeletons emerging from the water.
---
"Start pushing," said Raven.
The team understood.
Kira with her bow — not damage arrows, impact‑enchanted arrows. Each arrow finding a pirate at their balance point and applying enough force for their balance to give way toward the railing.
[Pirate 1 — balance impact — fall into water]
[Pirate 2 — balance impact — fall into water]
Emily with Purifying Light in defensive mode — creating pressure in the space between the team and the pirates, pushing toward the railing without causing damage but without letting them advance.
[Group of 8 pirates — defensive pressure — forced retreat]
Maya with Akari — the nine tails as a dynamic barrier, closing the advance angles toward the boat’s center, directing the flow of pirates toward the railings where Kira and Emily waited.
Slowly.
But working.
Pirates falling into the water one by one, two by two, in groups of three when the boat’s balance gave way with the wave movement and Emily took advantage of the moment of instability.
And in the water —
Raven’s one hundred twelve skeletons waited.
---
Not all the pirates who fell into the water climbed back up.
Not because the skeletons killed them — Army of Bones skeletons under F3’s control did what Raven ordered, and Raven hadn’t given the order to kill.
She had given the order to contain.
The skeletons surrounded the pirates in the water. Marine bone arms closing around bodies — not squeezing, holding. Pirates with their heads above water, not drowning, with no visible physical damage.
But with no way to return to the boat.
The south flank’s sub‑captain — who had lost his lesser Mark but was still level 82 with twenty years of combat experience — hit the water and tried to activate some ocean‑movement technique.
Two skeletons arrived before the technique finished forming.
The sub‑captain looked at the two sea creature bone skeletons thirty centimeters from his face.
The skeletons looked back — or did what skeletons did instead of looking, which was to orient toward their target.
"I’m not going anywhere," said the sub‑captain.
The skeletons didn’t respond.
But they didn’t leave either.
---
The number on deck was dropping.
From one hundred to eighty. From eighty to sixty. From sixty to forty.
Pirates pushed into the water met the skeletons. Those trying to return to the boat were blocked by the skeletons. Those trying to swim toward their own ships found that Raven’s one hundred twelve skeletons had also surrounded the nine ships.
Not captured.
Contained.
The deck space opened up progressively as the number dropped.
Seraph from the east flank — which now had space to move again — looked at the one hundred twelve skeletons in the water.
"How much did this cost you?" Seraph said to Raven.
Raven looked at the water.
"Much more mana than the sixteen." A pause. "Less than I expected."
"How long can you sustain them?"
Raven evaluated honestly.
"Twenty minutes at maximum." Her eyes on the water. "After that I need rest."
"Twenty minutes is enough."
"Yes." Raven. "If the main captain doesn’t have another ace."
Both looked toward the center ship where the captain had been watching the fight from the beginning — not boarding the team’s boat yet, not using his Mark at maximum yet.
Waiting for something.
"What’s he waiting for?" asked Raven.
Seraph evaluated.
"For us to exhaust our resources."
"How long has he been waiting?"
"From the beginning." Seraph. "All of this was to see how much we could sustain before reaching our limit."
Raven processed that.
*One hundred forty pirates as a test,* she thought. *Not to win. To measure.*
*And now he knows F3 can sustain one hundred twelve skeletons in the ocean for twenty minutes.*
*He knows F2 can cut the ocean’s spiritual plane within a five‑meter radius.*
*He knows F6 can collapse a lesser Mark in forty seconds.*
*He knows exactly what we have.*
"Alex," said Raven without raising her voice.
Alex from the center of the boat, still facing the main captain who hadn’t moved.
"What."
"The captain is measuring." Raven. "All of this was to see how much we can sustain."
Alex looked at the captain.
The captain looked at Alex with the expression of someone who had just finished reading an important document and already knew what he was going to do with the information.
"I know," said Alex.
"When is he going to act?"
Alex looked at the one hundred twelve skeletons in the water. At Raven with F3 at maximum. At Seraph on the east flank. At Jessica on the west, still with her notebook.
*When one of us reaches the limit,* Alex thought. *And Raven’s limit is twenty minutes.*
*Which means the captain is going to wait exactly twenty minutes and one second.*
"Soon," said Alex.