"We… we won?"
Gibbs's voice was a sandpaper rasp, his lone eye wide and fixed on the San Carlos. The Spanish frigate, once a sleek hunter, was now a broken toy, its bow wedged deep into the limestone teeth of the reef. Plumes of acrid black smoke rose from its shattered deck, and the sound of splintering wood echoed through the bay.
The entire engagement had lasted less than fifteen minutes. The Sea Serpent had emerged with little more than a few scrapes along its port-side hull, while the invincible pride of the Spanish Navy was crippled, its wings clipped and its back broken.
"We won! Huzzah! To the Navigator!"
A heartbeat of stunned silence was shattered by a roar of triumph that shook the rigging. The pirates erupted, throwing their salt-stained hats and rusted cutlasses into the air. Billy lunged toward Hugo, his face flushed with a manic, blood-pumping joy, and threw a heavy arm around Hugo's shoulders.
"Master Hugo! You're a God of War, you are!" Billy bellowed, his laughter booming. "I've served under a dozen captains, but I've never seen a man kill a frigate with a reef! You're the Devil's own pilot, and I'll gut any man who says otherwise!"
Barbossa stood by the helm, his hands still trembling, not with fear, but with the raw, electric shock of the victory. He looked at Hugo, who stood amidst the cheering crew like a pillar of cold stone. In his twenty years on the Caribbean, Barbossa had fought eighty-one battles. He had boarding-pikes through his ribs and musket balls in his legs. But he had never imagined a battle could be fought with geometry instead of blood. Hugo had used the San Carlos's own momentum to break her.
"Bring her alongside," Hugo commanded, pushing past the celebrating Billy. His voice was calm, cutting through the hysteria. "They're ours now. Don't let the prize sink before we strip her."
The Sea Serpent glided toward the stranded warship. The Spanish sailors were a broken lot; some were leaping into the surf, while others knelt on the canted deck, their hands raised in a desperate plea for mercy.
"Gibbs! Take twenty men and swarm her!" Barbossa ordered, his voice returning to its commanding boom. "I want everything! The long-guns, the powder, the food, and every drop of fresh water in their hold! If it's not bolted to the deck, it belongs to the Serpent!"
The pirates swarmed the San Carlos like a pack of starved wolves. They spent the entire afternoon stripping the frigate. The haul was magnificent, an armory's worth of high-grade Spanish powder and twelve-pounder cannons that were far superior to the rusted iron the pirates had been using. What made Barbossa's eyes dance with greed, however, was a locked cedar chest found in the Captain's Cabin.
It was the ship's payroll. Over a thousand silver reals, minted and gleaming.
"We're rich!" Barbossa laughed, plunging his hands into the silver as the chest was hauled onto the Sea Serpent's deck. "We haven't even seen the Trinidad's mast, and we've already made a season's wages!"
Hugo stood at the bow, watching the sun dip lower. "The silver is a pittance, Hector. Don't let the appetizers spoil your appetite for the feast."
With the San Carlos stripped and left to rot, the Sea Serpent pushed deeper into the Razor Reef. The victory had transformed the crew; they no longer questioned Hugo's orders. They moved with a surgical precision, their eyes constantly scanning the water as if waiting for Hugo to command the very waves to part.
As the sky turned a deep, bruised violet, Hugo signaled for the anchor to be dropped. "We are above her."
He closed his eyes, activating the newly unlocked skill: [Wreckage Structure Analysis].
In an instant, the physical world faded. A pulse of golden energy radiated from Hugo, sweeping down through the murky, hundred-meter depths. In his mind's eye, a 3D wireframe began to resolve. He saw the seafloor, the jagged limestone shelf, and then, the titan.
The Santa Trinidad lay on her side, a mountain of rotting oak and encrusted coral. She was massive, a three-decked queen of the sea now serving as a reef for the fishes. But under the scan, Hugo didn't just see wood. He saw the "stress points" where the hull had collapsed and, more importantly, the distribution of weight.
In the mid-to-aft section, in a cabin reinforced with iron-bound timbers, his vision flared gold. A dozen massive chests were piled there, their density registering as solid, heavy metal.
Found you.
"The wreck is eighty feet below, wedged against the eastern shelf," Hugo said, opening his eyes. "The treasure is in the captain's secondary hold, just behind the mainmast. The port side has a breach from the initial impact. That is your entry point."
Barbossa and Gibbs stared at him. The "friend" Hugo had mentioned before was becoming a less and less believable excuse. No man could know the internal layout of a sunken ship unless he had built it or possessed the eyes of a god.
"Dive!" Barbossa roared, the command breaking the spell of awe.
The pirates were men of the sea; they could hold their breath until their lungs screamed for mercy. They took turns, diving into the dark, silent water with ropes and hooks. Following Hugo's precise instructions, they bypassed the dangerous, collapsing sections of the upper deck and swam straight into the heart of the galleon.
When the first diver surfaced, he wasn't gasping for air, he was screaming with a wild, terrifying joy. He held aloft a single, heavy gold doubloon, its surface still shimmering despite the decades of salt.
"Gold! It's there! It's all there!"
The deck erupted into madness. One by one, the heavy, iron-bound chests were winched up from the depths, the pulleys groaning under the weight of the Spanish Empire's stolen wealth. When the first chest was pried open on the deck of the Sea Serpent, even Hugo felt a momentary catch in his breath.
Golden chalices, scepters encrusted with emeralds, bars of solid bullion, and thousands upon thousands of gold coins cascaded across the wood. It was a king's ransom. It was enough to buy a fleet, a province, or a crown.
"We're rich..." Barbossa whispered. He knelt before the mountain of gold, his hands trembling as he let the coins slip through his fingers. The sound of the clinking metal was the only thing he could hear.
His eyes, reflecting the golden light, began to change. The excitement was vanishing, replaced by a dark, oily avarice. He looked at the treasure, then at the pirates who were laughing and dancing, and finally at Hugo.
Seventy-thirty. That had been the deal. Seventy percent of this mountain for Barbossa, thirty percent shared among the crew and the "Navigator."
But as Barbossa felt the weight of a gold bar in his hand, a new, lethal calculation began to form in his mind. Why should a boy and a bunch of drunkards take any of this? Why share the world when I can own it all?
Hugo saw the look in Barbossa's eyes, the flicker of betrayal. He felt his hand drift toward the hilt of his cutlass. The "Great Navigator" system had led him to the gold, but it hadn't told him how to survive the greed of the man he had enriched.
"The work isn't finished, Hector," Hugo said, his voice a cold warning. "The sea takes back what it gives if you lose your focus."
Barbossa didn't look up. He just smiled, a thin, dangerous expression. "Oh, I'm focused, Hugo. I've never been more focused in my life."