Chương 18

After slaughtering well over a dozen phantoms with surprising ease, the captain finally showed his ugly face. He stepped out onto the deck and sneered down at them. He wore a large feathered hat that covered badly braided hair. If he wasn't a ghost, Oliver guessed he would likely have smelled the man long before he saw him.

"Careful," Oliver said.

"Captain just showed up. And he's level 63." The first mate had been invisible to Kiki while fighting Oliver only twenty feet away from her. There wasn't a guarantee that she would be able to see this foe either. Which meant the responsibility of facing this foe fell on Oliver. That was fine by him, vanquishing corrupt spirits was something of a specialty for Oliver.

Throughout the fight with the fodder low level crew, while Kiki had been slicing apart their enemies, Oliver had taken advantage of the buffer and created a perfect circle of salt.

"Two steps back," he instructed her.

"And don't drag your feet." She parried a phantom with a knife, disarming her opponent in the moment before sliding her katana along its neck. Then she took two steps in swift retreat, never looking back. Then she cut another phantom's legs off at the knees. The legless ghost floundered forward and slammed its head into an invisible salt barrier. It yowled in pain as it faded into ectoplasmic gunk. Oliver aimed and fired his blunderbuss up at the ghost standing at the ship's railing.

The captain swiped his cutlass through the air and chopped the silver bullet in half. One of the phantom crew stepped within reach of the salt circle and Kiki scalped it with a curved strike around the face. It clawed at its oozing face and Kiki stabbed her katana into its open, screaming mouth. The captain raised a fist and all of his crew took a step back in retreat. Then he chopped the air. A chill swept over the beach, overriding the warm sun above them.

The heaps of ectoplasm scattered about all began to bubble. Slowly, the ghostly crew reformed in front of their eyes. Every single one of the normal crew members was back to their previous state prior to their battle, as if nothing had happened.

"Fantastic," Kiki said.

"I suppose that's the sort of skill at a level 60's disposal."

"But I doubt it can be used more than once a day." Oliver looked back to the beach where they'd fought the first mate. It remained unmoving. It could be because the ectoplasm still had a fist's worth of salt in it, the undead servant had been too high of a level to be resurrected, or the skill simply didn't reach that distance. Regardless, that was a relief to Oliver. It was only the minions back in action. While dangerous as a swarm, individually, they weren't much to sneeze at.

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"Doesn't matter," Kiki growled.

"Keep bringing them back all a thousand times over. This fodder won't stop me. Just gives me more enemies to kill. More experience to gain. Bring it, I could do this all day." Despite her bluster, neither side made a move to attack. They stood there, at a standstill. Oliver shot his blunderbuss, this time aiming for a random crew member's torso. In a blur, the captain intercepted the shot, chopping it down with his cutlass, much the same as the earlier shot.

In a blink of an eye, he had brought himself down from the ship and on the sandy beach with his crew. Oliver tried again, hoping that the captain had expended a once a day skill. Unfortunately it did not seem that way. The next three shots were all blocked in the same manner. At this point, Oliver was just wasting his limited number of bullets. With each bullet blocked, it didn't even earn him experience.

"This limits our options," he said.

"It's fine," Kiki insisted.

"I'll keep taking them head on and while they're distracted by me, you can continue to pick them off with bullets. Oliver grabbed her shoulder as she moved to take a step back out into the fray.

"You saw the captain's speed. I don't care how high your dexterity is, you won't be fast enough to match that."

"And other options?" Kiki asked.

"We can continue to stand in your safety circle, but that won't get us anywhere. We're on an island. There's not a lot of places to run to. If the ghosts are interfering with [Technomancer]'s drones then we won't be able to rely on his help either. The only way forward is battle." Kiki raised a good point about them not having anywhere to run to. Usually restless spirits had their souls tied to their remains, only ever able to travel a certain radius from them.

But the crew likely all had their bones stuck on the ship, which allowed them a lot more mobility than the wraiths Oliver was used to dealing with, who were almost always grounded in cemeteries. The thought triggered an idea. Oliver looked over at the ghost ship. His earlier attack had caused minimal damage to the deck, not much else. However, it did cause damage. But it wasn't likely he'd be able to cause it much more damage at the moment. Not with all eyes on him.

"Sanctuary," he said, triggering his Summon Sanctuary skill. Kiki, understanding the skill activation, tapped her toe impatiently, but did wait for the delayed skill to activate. After a tense ten minutes, the coffin rose up from the ground.

"Are you retrieving gear?" she asked.

"Not yet. We should hole up and recalibrate for a few hours."

"If you want to hide, I can take this captain myself," Kiki said dismissively. She turned her back on him.

"Tactical retreat," Oliver said.

"You might be able to take a level 63. I haven't seen all your skills and I don't fully know what you're capable of. However, I do have a plan. It will give us better odds than just ramming our skulls into the problem. Trust me." Kiki hesitated. Then, very reluctantly, she sheathed her sword.

"Fine. But you know they'll still be here when we crawl out of your coffin. They're ghosts. They don't need food, water, shelter. They'll wait us out."

"I'm counting on it."