"Jack." Daniel said, eyeing him suspiciously, "did you do something… questionable to call me here?"
In all this, one thing was clear—only Jack knew him. Naturally, that made this entirely Jack's mess.
Jack raised both hands and stood up slowly. "No, no, absolutely not," he said quickly. "If I'd known how to summon you, I'd have done it ages ago. All I did was pray you'd show up and save me."
"…You prayed?" Daniel echoed.
Jack shrugged. "Seemed worth a try. Desperate times, desperate measures."
Daniel frowned, glancing at the towering fire, the kneeling tribesmen, the half-finished ritual around them.
"That's… new," he muttered. "Since when does prayer actually work?"
He went quiet for a moment, thinking.
Since he was a demi-god, maybe this was possible after all.
Maybe demi-gods could answer prayers—especially desperate ones. Daniel glanced around the clearing again, taking in the ritual marks, the towering fire, the kneeling tribesmen.
Whatever they'd been doing hadn't been completed properly, but parts of it were clearly in place.
A half-finished ritual. A frightened tribe. And one pirate wishing very hard not to be eaten.
Somehow, all of it had lined up and produced this.
"…So that's how," Daniel muttered. "Not intentional. Just a mess of circumstances."
"Whatever, Jack. I have a job for you," Daniel said. "I need you to find the Fountain of Youth."
Two fragments remained. One lay there, tied to that place. As for the other—Daniel's gaze shifted briefly to Jack—he wouldn't need to search for it at all. Jack would bring it to him soon enough.
The black mark on Jack's hand would see to that. It would draw the Kraken up from the depths, just as it always did. When that happened, Daniel would kill the beast himself and take what it carried.
Jack let out a short, humorless laugh. "I can do that. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow—I can take you anywhere," he said.
Then he added quickly, "But before we go chasing fountains and legends, you'll need to help me deal with a rather nasty octopus that's very determined to drag me into the sea."
Daniel nodded once. "Okay."
He was letting Jack work for free.
Poor Jack—blissfully unaware that Daniel would have handled the problem whether he'd asked or not.
Jack straightened, relief and ambition mixing on his face. "Then it seems we have an arrangement."
"Then let's go," Daniel said.
He snapped his fingers.
The kneeling tribesmen stiffened. For a split second, Daniel's figure was replaced by something wrong—too many eyes, layered and blinking out of sync, an image that refused to settle in the mind. It lasted less than a heartbeat.
That was more than enough.
One by one, the tribesmen collapsed where they knelt, eyes rolled back, bodies slack as their minds simply… shut down.
Jack stared at the unconscious pile, then at Daniel.
"…What trick was that?" he asked, impressed. "I've seen it a few times now. Think I could learn it? Very useful for negotiations. Or robberies. Mostly robberies."
"If you want to learn it," Daniel said mildly, "you'd need to see what they saw. About a thousand times."
Jack glanced at a tribesman foaming faintly at the mouth.
He reconsidered.
"…On second thought," Jack said, straightening his hat, "perhaps I'll stick to running. I'm exceptionally good at that."
***
On the cliffside, the crew dangled helplessly in their bone cages, swaying with every gust of wind.
Then a familiar voice drifted down.
"My crew!" Jack called proudly. "Your captain has come to rescue you all."
Gibbs squinted upward. "Jack?" he shouted. "How did you escape?"
Jack stepped closer to the edge, chest out, every inch the heroic figure—at least from a distance.
"Well," he said lightly, "I had a helping hand."
Another figure stepped beside him.
The mood changed instantly.
The crew went silent.
Relief evaporated, replaced by dread.
"…Not again," someone muttered.
They remembered very clearly what being anywhere near Daniel usually involved—terror, hallucinations, and the unsettling feeling that reality itself was optional.
This time, they weren't sure whether to be grateful their captain had returned…
or afraid of what had come back with him.
"Are you happy to have me aboard again?" Daniel asked, peering down at the cages from the cliff's edge.
Below him, the crew didn't even bother pretending.
Every head shook at once.
Hands waved frantically.
A few men crossed themselves.
"No," Gibbs said flatly. "Not even a little."
Daniel hummed, as if mildly disappointed.
Then a shadow peeled itself away from the cliff face.
It moved like something alive—stretching, thickening—before sliding beneath the dangling bone cages. One by one, the cages lurched upward, yanked toward the top of the cliff as if hauled by an invisible hand.
The crew groaned in unison.
"Here we go again" someone muttered, squeezing his eyes shut.
Like that, the crew finally regrouped on the deck of Black Pearl, beached along the shore. The relief of solid ground didn't last long.
Once the shouting died down and the panic settled, the question everyone had been holding back finally came out.
"Captain," one sailor said carefully, "why did you drag us to that cursed island in the first place?"
Jack didn't answer right away.
For once, he didn't grin. He didn't joke. He hesitated—then showed the black spot on his hand.
The black mark on his palm was unmistakable.
The reaction was immediate.
Men stepped back as one. Several crossed themselves. One muttered a prayer under his breath.
A younger pirate squinted at Jack's hand.
"…That's it?" he asked. "Why's everyone scared of a little spot? Is it some kind of sickness?"
Gibbs turned on him sharply. "Sickness?" He shook his head. "Aye—worse."
He swallowed hard. "That's the Black Spot. The mark of death."
The deck went quiet.
"It means the Kraken has been set upon him. It will come, and the ship he sails on will be dragged down into the depths of the ocean."
He took an unconscious step backward from Jack.
"No one who bears that mark lives long enough to tell the tale," Gibbs finished, eyeing the sea as if expecting tentacles to rise at any moment.
Right then, he looked ready to jump ship and put as much water as possible between himself and Jack Sparrow.
*****
A/N: If you'd like to read chapters ahead of the Webnovel release schedule, you can join my Patreon!
The Patreon version is already updated up to Chapter 117.
👉 patreon.com/Universal_Peace