"What are you doing?" Jonathan raised his voice, but there was no alarm in it, no fear. He wasn't even angry, despite what he had seen. A gun pointed at him.

That was because Leonard, who was holding the gun, would never pull the trigger and shoot him.

In fact, he didn't even understand why he would be pointing a gun at him. For a moment, he wondered if there wasn't something or someone behind him. An enemy. It was only for a moment, though. Because the next instant everything changed.

A clap of thunder struck the earth.

The noise made his ears ring, to the point that he lost his balance. He took two staggering steps backward and fell, driving one knee into the ground.

He couldn't help but notice that the others were all right. As if they hadn't noticed what he had.

Strange, he thought, in a distant, dreamlike way.

But of course.

None of those present had experienced what he had. Jonathan coughed, feeling as if he had something stuck in his throat. As if he had swallowed water, somehow.

What he spat out onto the ground, staining the grass beneath his feet, wasn't water. It was blood.

He just shot me, he thought, incredulous.

He raised his head.

Slowly, Jonathan brought a hand to his chest. Sure enough, as he withdrew it, he saw that his fingertips were stained with blood. He knew that. He already knew that, but...

"How dare you?"

Jonathan gritted his teeth. The confusion vanished in the blink of an eye, giving way to an unrelenting anger like a stormy sea. He didn't really care about the reason.

All he wanted was to see him dead.

He didn't know why Leonard, after so many years together, would betray him. But he had been very stupid to do so surrounded by his crew. While it was true that it wasn't all of them, that a good part was waiting outside, on the ship, instead of in this cave, they were still more than enough to tear a single man apart.

"Finish him off!"

He gave the order, but no one moved to take the gun from him and kill him. That must be because they were as surprised as he was. Frozen in surprise. That was what he told himself, at least, but Jonathan hadn't survived so many decades as a pirate lost in vague illusions.

There was something in their stares, in everyone around him. Something sinister.

Jonathan shuddered.

"What's going on here?"

Jonathan tried to sit up, but Leonard, the bastard, was a good shot. His legs couldn't support his own weight. He fell back to the ground.

Over a pool of his own blood, which was slowly spreading on the grass.

I can't die here. Not yet.

"You reap what you sow, my friend," Leonard replied.

Jonathan gritted his teeth. He dared to mock him, it had been several decades since anyone had considered such a thing sensible. But of course, Leonard believed that he was the one with the power now.

And he was right. At least in the confines of this damned cave.

In fact, Jonathan was so shocked, so hurt, by the bullet that he hadn't even begun to think about how to get out of here alive. He hadn't come this far, across uncharted waters, with mere survival in mind.

But he would have to settle for that. For the time being.

"What are you talking about?" Jonathan asked, insisting.

"You should have seen it coming. You old sea dog. No, anyone would have seen it, really. But you were only thinking of yourself. Always looking ahead, and not to the side. Or behind you."

"How do you think this is going to work out? You kill me, dump my body in some dark hole and then what? When you and your band of traitors," he spat, "get back to the beach, what do you think will happen? You'll be welcomed with open arms? The crew won't be suspicious?"

To his surprise, as if that wasn't enough, Leonard laughed. Then he started pacing back and forth. With the smoking gun still in one hand. If he had wanted to, he could have killed him with the first shot. But it was clear he wanted to gloat first.

"You don't understand," he shook his head, "I thought you'd realize at this point. I've got most of the crew on my side!"

What?

"Please, Jonathan. Seriously, what did you think you'd accomplish by being so selfish? For months, you've dragged us on this journey, all for your personal vendetta, chasing a legend to kill someone who can't die. And all in the name of people you don't even have the right to avenge. Gods, you didn't find out you had a daughter until after her first birthday."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

That was true. He hadn't been a good father or a good husband, but still, they were his family.

"And we were supposed to smile and let you ruin our lives? Hatred blinded you, my friend. Like I said, you're just reaping what you sowed. If it hadn't been me, someone else would have done it. Sooner or later."

"Get it over with, you coward."

Leonard raised the gun again, leisurely reloaded the pistol, instead of reaching for any of the ones under his coat. He could say what he wanted, but he was in no hurry to get this over with.

All the while, he didn't take his eyes off him.

"I wish things could be different.”

When he finished reloading, he took aim at him again. And Jonathan was still lying on the ground, without an escape plan, hell, he couldn't even move yet. He couldn't believe it. This couldn't be the end of him.

"But you left me no choice." Finally he gave up all that useless preamble, took aim and fired.

You have to move, no matter what it takes.

"Captain!" someone suddenly shouted. Jonathan wasn't the kind of captain who didn't care about his crew, rather the other way around, he would know each of them by their voices alone.

Except in this situation.

With a tremendous effort, Jonathan managed to move, but it wouldn't have been nearly enough had it not been for a real member of his crew getting in the way. He only realized who it was when he hit the ground. Another old crew member. Not as old as Leonard, but Benjamin knew the meaning of loyalty, at least.

And what good had it done him? This.

Lying on the ground, drowning in his own blood.

But the man had bought him some time, he had bought him....

"You idiot!" Leonard shouted, "If only you had stayed put!"

Jonathan had never had to exert himself so much, though he had brushed with death more times than he could count. But he managed to get to his feet, managed to run.

Into the abyss.

Behind him, there was a good drop, and water.

But it was his only way out. Jonathan landed on one of the platforms that towered over the void. Even in the midst of it, he saw clearly the path he must have taken, through the platforms, the stone wall, and what little help he could get from the terrain, such as overhanging rocks or branches.

The question was whether he could traverse it.

"Open fire! If he escapes from here, we're all dead."

Yes. Well said. Not only would he kill the count, he would see that all the traitors ended up in the other world with his own hands. But first things first. Getting out of here.

Get out, even though he was being shot at by several dozen men and was an easy target.

Get out, despite his bullet wound.

And the terrain.

The latter, precisely, was his undoing.

He grabbed one of the branches, intending to use it as a fulcrum to swing and leap to the other side, but he didn't get that far. With a snap, it snapped in half, leaving him in free fall.

Damn. Damn it!

As if that wasn't enough, one of the bullets hit him in midair.

Pushing him hard into the rocks. He hit his head and that was the end of it. Half unconscious, he kept falling. He had time to think: I'm going to die here.

Fate had been merciless with him all his life, but at least it allowed him to die before he hit the ground, before he saw how the water filled with his blood.

——

Jonathan woke up, opening his eyes with a start.

It took him a few seconds to remember his situation, to realize that he shouldn't even be alive. Not after a fall of such magnitude.

How had he survived?

Jonathan got to his feet, which took less effort than he had expected. Then he pushed himself away from the water. He was still inside the cave, the current hadn't carried him very far.

How long had he been out?

Jonathan staggered forward, stopped his fall by resting a hand on a rock. He remained doubled over. His eyes were narrowed, water running through his hair, down his cheeks. He heard it fall.

Now his legs could support his own weight. Albeit barely. He had to take this easy.

He hadn't just been lucky not to kill himself in the fall. He could easily have drowned while unconscious. He didn't know how long he had been like this, a short time or a long one, but it didn't matter. It could have happened.

Jonathan examined himself and discovered something that surprised him even more.

"The bullet wounds are gone. I don't understand..."

He possessed a passive form of regeneration, but had he really been unconscious for so long that his wounds had healed on their own? The thing is, they were healed, so maybe he shouldn't doubt. What other explanation was there?

Jonathan looked up. Very, very high.

To where he had fallen from.

He could see nothing up there, not even the shadows of the traitors. He couldn't hear anything either. Voices, orders. Not even footsteps echoing in the darkness. That meant nothing, of course. They could be looking for him. He wished they were doing just that, in fact.

Because otherwise they would have already given up and left with his ship. And he was thirsty for revenge. Not just against the Count, but against every last traitor. They all had to die.

Jonathan set off, intending to find them. Waiting.

Perhaps they were already out of his reach, for the moment. And maybe he shouldn't expect to find them, one way or another. How was he going to fight the whole crew by himself?

But he couldn't think straight.

The heart beating in his chest was a mass of pure rage.

He stumbled around in the darkness, following the water, until he finally made it out of the cave. The sun burned his eyes, he raised an arm to provide some cover until his eyes got used to it. Once again, he wondered how long he had spent there. Once again, he told himself it didn't matter.

It didn't take him long to discover that the ship was gone.

Jonathan wasn't wrong. The ship had definitely docked there, but now it was gone and that could only mean one thing. Leonard and his men probably hadn't even looked for him. They had simply left him for dead after the fall and had gotten the hell off this remote island.

Jonathan spat on the sand.

They had betrayed him, and abandoned him.

"Unbelievable. I'd come so far to fail now, when I almost had it, almost."

But at least he hadn't died, after all. Luck, a miracle, what mattered was the outcome. What mattered was that he could try again. As long as he didn't die, he hadn't lost anything, but had merely encountered a setback. An overly optimistic outlook for a pirate, perhaps.

But it was all true. Jonathan could start over. No matter how much it would cost him, how many years would pass, he wouldn't leave this world until the traitors and that Count were six feet under. Then and only then. It wasn't a promise, an oath, but a fact.

Jonathan fell to his knees on the sand. The only thing that had allowed him to get this far after the fall had been his thirst for revenge. Now that he knew that all the targets at which he could direct his rage were beyond his reach, he simply couldn't hold out a moment longer.

But it wasn't just that.

Not just.

He felt strange. It wasn't as if he was inexplicably dying after surviving such a fall. It wasn't something like that, but a feeling he couldn't put into words. He had checked himself with his eyes and with his hands. But he would have to open his status screen to really know his condition.

What he saw there made his heart stop.

He had traveled for three months chasing a legend, just as Leonard had said.

The legend of an artifact to kill an immortal.

During those three months, they had traversed uncharted territory and waters, and faced countless dangers. But this... He was setting foot on a frontier no one had truly explored, turbulent waters like no others.

The notification he'd received as soon as he'd opened the status screen was as follows.

New class: Undead

Blood on the water: END