Fun fact: You can fit a sawed-off shotgun in a magical money-pouch. I didn’t even need to tuck it into my belt or strap it to my back, because it was well under a meter in length. Since the Contribution Tokens barely took up any space in the first place, I didn’t have any trouble shoving the shotgun inside the tiny bag.

Unfortunately, my rifle was too big. That wasn’t innuendo by the way. There was also the problem of ‘weight’. Those leather and fur containers really weren’t that durable. I didn’t test this personally, but Mei did warn me “If someone cuts or rips open and extradimensional pouch, all of the items inside will shoot outwards all over the place. It’s actually pretty dangerous… That’s why people usually don’t store sharp objects inside of them.”

Honestly, if they weren’t so difficult and expensive to make, I think that people would have purposefully used that particular feature to create grenades. Only someone as whimsical and ridiculous as Azrael would go through the effort to build bombs like that though.

One of our most famous escapades was when we sold thousands of guns to these douchebags called ‘The Reapers’. Yeah, I know, real original, right? Anyway, regardless of how awesome our Clan was, we couldn’t fight against them directly. They practically extorted us into giving them an absurd amount of firepower. However, it’s not a good idea to treat the people who are making your guns and ammunition like shit.

No, we didn’t rig their weapons to explode. Azrael wanted to do that, but there was a much simpler method. I decided to go old school and told him to put trace amounts of polonium in the triggers. It was a pretty advanced game, just not totally realistic. Death wasn’t permanent and the result was that every day for about a week, everyone in their entire Clan would get radiation poisoning and die. By the time that they realized what was causing them problems, it was already too late. Their ‘Battle-Rating’ dropped significantly and they went from being able to have thousands of members, to less than five hundred. Then a bunch of Clans like ours teamed up and started farming them on a daily basis, until they disbanded.

The moral of the story is that even a tiny frog can kill a giant horse if it uses poison and is a sneaky little bitch. Sure, it might not be ‘fair’ and people might hate you for it afterwards, but winning is more important than honor… Especially when it came to war.

***

When I opened the door to our cabin, the first thing I noticed was that those five-hundred black-robed Silver Sword Cuntbags were still kneeling on the main deck of the Titanic Fury.

“Why the hell should we show them any mercy?! They wanted to capture us and turn us into slaves, so why can’t we do the same to them?!” Captain Li was screaming at the old High-Priest and her spit was literally flying everywhere.

Raphael casually wiped the saliva off his face, while furrowing his long, white eyebrows. He slammed his staff onto the ironwood deck, causing the entire ship to bob up and down for a few seconds. Then he calmly stated “In accordance with Lunar Laws, all prisoners of war must be treated ‘humanely’. Little Girl, no matter how much you hate these children, you are not above Her Holiness, the Legendary Celestial Goddess, Luna!”

She growled “What humane treatment?! It’s not like any of those bastards have to follow your bullshit rules! If Luna hates slavery so fucking much, then why doesn’t she get her ass down here and directly stop those scumbags herself?! How many Southern Islanders have been captured and enslaved in the past few weeks?!”

After wiping even more spittle off of his face, the old man growled “The Church of Luna isn’t helping ‘them’, now are we?! These are our most sacred beliefs! No rape, no slavery, no genocide! For thousands of years, we have kept enclaves in the Southern Islands, because your people have agreed to uphold these laws! Without our assistance, do you think for a moment that your tiny country would have lasted this long against this atrocious invasion?! No!”

Captain Li’s face was practically glowing bright-red, but she managed to calm herself down and take a deep breath. Eventually, she stared up into the clear-blue sky and muttered “Fine… I’ll give them the three choices.” Then she walked over to the railing and glared at the hundreds of terrified former Students and Teachers of the Silver Sword School.

“Listen up! The lot of you have a decision to make! You each have three choices! Number one: Death! You can either kill yourselves, or we’ll kill you ourselves, but it’ll be quick either way! Number two: Dantian Destruction! You might die, or you might live, but you’ll definitely be permanently crippled if you do! The last choice… As much as I would like to just enslave the lot of you, the Lunar Enclave is willing to accept you all as Probationary Holy Soldiers. You must swear your loyalty to the Celestial Goddess Luna and accept her mark…”

I couldn’t help but murmur “What’s the difference between that and slavery exactly?” Surprisingly though, practically everyone chose the third option.

Mei quietly explained to me, “In the Southern Islands, The Church of Luna is the most common religion. But… Well, although they have a fairly good reputation, it’s rare for people to willingly accept the Mark of Luna.”

A handful of people had their heads cut off, then about ten guys and one girl caused their own Dantians to explode. It wasn’t very pretty, but compared to that ‘Marking Ceremony’… Yeah, Raphael went through nearly three-hundred men and two-hundred women. At first I was like “Oh hey, it’s probably just a brand or something, right? What’s the big deal?”

Nope, I was so wrong. The first person was a muscular, two-meter tall dude with a shaggy beard and a scar over his left eye. He was totally bald and seemed to be at the peak of the Apprentice Stage.

As Raphael approached, he took off all of his fancy vestments and his body suddenly transmogrified. Gigantic gazelle horns erupted from his temples, his skin turned blood-red, a demonic black snake-like tail emerged from his lower-back and below his waist seemed all… goat-ish. There was white fur covering his legs and his hooves were golden.

That dude totally looked like a devil or demon of some sort, even to me, so it was obvious that those Silver Sword Twats were terrified. His silver staff glowed brightly, as he thrust it straight into that beefy guy’s Dantian. After screeching in an abnormally high-pitched voice for several seconds, he collapsed onto the deck and vomited out a bunch of blood. Two sailors ran over and dragged the unconscious man away from the rest of the kneeling people. I didn’t see any visible wounds appear on the dude’s body though.

Mei whispered “The Mark of Luna doesn’t show up on a person’s flesh… It’s inside of their Dantian and, their eyes. Once marked, their Innate Talent will drop down to bright-red. But, it’s possible for them to raise it back to where it was or even higher. Though most people are never able to gather enough achievements for the Church of Luna in order to be bestowed that kind of honor. If they try to betray the Church, then their Dantian will explode and cripple or kill them. However, there’s an even more unnerving side-effect of the mark… impotence. Men will lose their desire and ability to have sex, while women become barren, unable to have children.”

I sighed dramatically, then turned towards the sneering middle-aged giantess and told her “Hey Captain, we’re gonna go enjoy our shore-leave now…”

She turned towards me and started smiling wryly, then she suggested “Be careful in this town… Don’t leave the port if you can help it. I’m sure you know about Little Mei’s identity already. If you go too far into the city, I won’t be able to do anything to help either of you. I’ve got enough shit to deal with already and I can’t afford to start a war against Hua Ri Keep to save either of you.”

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