Chapter 65: Rise to Fame

  Maria, the proprietress of the Green Forest Bar in Sisit, a socialite of the upper class of Mata Kingdom, is known for her beauty and charm.

  However, her true identity is the top spy of the Kelsman family, responsible not only for collecting and gathering various information but also for cultivating and training the "Swallows" of the Kelsman family.

  "Seagull", the ace spy of the Kelsmann family, a girl carefully selected by Countess Margarete. These girls are all orphans who have lost their parents and have broken families. They are beautiful, intelligent and sensitive, all of them are peerless.

  After being selected by Margarete, these girls were sent to various "Nest" for extremely rigorous training. In the "Nest", these young and beautiful orphans were trained into a kind of human spy machine that knows no pain, no shame, and no fatigue.

  They are not only proficient in astronomy and geography, music and poetry, politics and military affairs, people's livelihoods and economy, but also proficient in men and women, especially good at grasping the mentality and preferences of men, using their beauty and charm to firmly control a man's heart, and thus getting what they want from this man.

  Maria of Xexis, the ace in "Sea Swallow", had a sentence that shocked the entire spy world.

  "Men, born with a violent and possessive nature, full of desires to conquer and dominate. With their boundless energy and ambition, they have conquered the world, even the vast skies and the endless oceans are in their grasp. Without a doubt, men have conquered the world, and we, conquer men!"

  Maria wore a flowing, deep blue long dress with a V-shaped neckline that exposed a patch of white, delicate skin. She held a high-heeled glass filled with amber-colored liquid, leaning against the bar counter, her slender eyebrows and eyes containing a faint smile as she gazed at everyone in the bar.

  Here, almost every sailor is excitedly talking about the same person's name, and they are discussing the same thing with unparalleled enthusiasm.

  Tang Jie!

  Battle of Salamis!

  A pirate captain who once drank with them in this bar, a man with black hair, rising like a comet.

  A stunning naval battle where two defeated ten, and a small force overcame a large one, turning defeat into victory.

  "Hahaha, I knew those Xixi people were no good, one touch and they'd fall apart! How's that, got beaten badly enough this time? Ten, all ten three-masted warships sunk, the Third Naval Defense Squadron was disbanded! The old masters of the Xixi Navy, are they crying at home or kowtowing to His Majesty the King?"

  These sailors who make a living on the sea, one by one have guts that are frightening, never afraid of anything, even if it's something like what just happened, not a single sailor showed a hint of fear or worry on their face, instead they all started banging on the table and burst out laughing.

  "Yes, these officials are useless, they have nothing better to do than to bully the fish and shrimp in the sea, thinking of going out to sea to fight pirates? Ha! I think they're just going to lose face! Their abilities are limited to being in bed, showing off on women's bellies!"

  "No wonder, last time when I had a drink with Captain Tang Jie, I thought he looked fierce in close combat, but I didn't expect that his naval warfare tactics would be so fierce too! He actually annihilated the entire Third Sea Defense Guard with just two warships! This is truly unbelievable!"

  "That's right! With two against ten, such a record, I've been sailing for seventeen years and have never heard of it!"

  "Wrong, have you forgotten the famous Battle of Hothornk?"

  "Are you talking about the fleet commander Michael of the Noah Continental Invincible Fleet? That's not comparable, in the Battle of Holhornk, Michael with twelve against forty, a ratio of less than one to four, and most of his twelve warships were five-masted King-class battleships, enough to form a destructive barrage, with fierce firepower, even the Black Dragon King would be knocked down by just one round of barrage attacks!"

  "While Captain Tung had only one three-masted Lion-class warship and one two-masted Flying Fish-class warship under his command, which couldn't even form a destructive barrage attack, his enemy-to-our ratio was 1:5! At sea, an enemy-to-our ratio of more than 1:3 is already an overwhelming advantage, and there is no possibility of turning the tables! However, Captain Tung created the miracle of a 1:5 naval battle! This is the largest disparity in naval combat strength between the two sides on record! The difficulty of this feat far surpasses that of Admiral McHale's Battle of Holhornk!"

  "I agree! I really don't know how this naval battle was fought, and I wish I could experience it personally, even if it's just to see it with my own eyes!"

  The sailors held their wine cups, even forgetting to drink, each looking up with a distant gaze, sighing endlessly.

  The Duchy of Mata is a vassal state of the Ponde Empire, and the common people of Xixi will be subject to double taxation by both the Ponde Empire and the Duchy of Mata. Although Xixi is prosperous and wealthy, money often flows into the pockets of merchants, then from merchants to nobles, military officers, politicians, and kings.

  The common people are still poor, and their lives are very difficult. Especially the dockworkers and sailors, they work hard every day to earn a meager income that is exploited twice over, leaving them with very little money.

  So the sailors here are all filled with resentment towards the Kingdom of Mata, and when they heard that the Xixi Sea Navy was beaten by a pirate, they not only didn't feel ashamed, but instead rejoiced at their misfortune.

  People who make a living on the sea have a bold and straightforward personality, most of them worship heroes. For Tang Jie, this mysterious foreign pirate who annihilated the Third Sea Defense Fleet of Xixi, they not only do not fear or dislike him, but instead start to fanatically idolize this black-haired pirate like a hero.

  It's great to be able to severely punish these corrupt and greedy officials!

  This is almost the consensus of all sailors in Xixi!

  Maria stood a short distance away watching them, a faintly meaningful smile floating on her face.

  After Aramshah fled back to Sis with his warships, although he once covered up the truth of everything, the entire Third Sea Defense Fleet disappeared, and more than a thousand naval officers and soldiers died at sea. The most prosperous Moorish Street in Sis became a ruin. How could a naval admiral conceal such a series of shocking events?

  On the second day after Aramis's escape to Sicy, Mary gathered intelligence from all sides and learned everything about what had happened. She even knew every detail and turning point of this brutal Battle of Sicy.

  In a mountain of intelligence, Maria was shocked by this man who almost had an affair with her in the spring.

  Although she knew that the Third Fleet of Xixi had been overconfident from the start, sowing the seeds for their own destruction, and although she knew that Tangie had possessed incredible luck throughout this astonishing battle.

  In a fierce sea battle, the flagship's mast was never struck down, and its vital parts were never severely damaged. Such luck would make even Triton's favorite son, Atlas, jealous!

  Despite all sorts of coincidences and luck, to defeat ten with two and annihilate the entire Third Naval Defense Squadron of Xixis is not something that can be explained by just luck and coincidence!

  Ordinary people would have already lost their will and courage to fight in the face of such a disparity, choosing instead to surrender.

  But this unruly man, he chose to resolutely meet the challenge, with the most firm and passionate fighting posture, leading his warship, leading his sailors, rushing towards the enemy several times stronger than him!

  He is a brave and fearless man, the most pure-hearted of men!

  I was right about him after all...

  Maria's mouth corners involuntarily hooked out a smile, and her soft and charming eyes became even more bright and captivating.

  Where is he now?

  What's going on?

  He had no idea that his actions had already caught the attention of the enormous Kelsman family, and what he would face next was an ancient and terrifying family.

  With his current strength, it would be as easy for the Kelsman family to kill him as it is to crush an ant.

  Faced with an invincible and powerful enemy, what reaction will this unruly man have? Will he succumb to the overwhelming pressure of the Kelsman family or rise up in resistance, roaring and fighting to the death?

  Maria took a light sip of wine and slowly exhaled a warm, soft breath, muttering to herself: "It's really something to look forward to..."

  "Maria..." A bar girl suddenly came over, breaking into Maria's solitary world "Just now a man in his fifties came, he specifically asked to see you in the back room."

  "Did he say what his name was?" Maria asked, looking at her.

  The bartender shook her head.

  "What does he look like?"

  The bartender thought for a moment and said: "Greyish white short hair, flat head, square face high nose, grey eyes, sharp gaze like a knife, I've never seen a man like him before, just like an unsheathed sharp knife, standing in front of him being looked at by him, I almost peed my pants..."

  Maria listened carefully, holding the high-footed cup and gently shaking it, looking at the amber-colored wine hanging on the rim of the glass, slightly distracted.

  "Maria, do you need me to call someone to throw him out?" the barmaid asked her.

  Maria suddenly knew who the person was, she smiled: "Don't joke around, there are absolutely no more than ten people in this world who can drive him away... you go busy yourself, I'm going to see him now!"

  The bartender turned around, took a few steps, and curiously turned her head to ask: "Who is he? Is he strong?"

  Mary smiled and didn't respond to her words, just made a gesture for her to go to work, and she herself turned around and walked into the inner room.

  As she walked to the turn, just about to push open the door of the inner house, Maria heard a loud noise coming from the bar, several sailors laughed loudly and said: "What's not dare? He wants to come to Xixi again to recruit sailors, you see if I dare not get on his ship! What's the big deal about being a pirate?"

  "What can you do besides consuming food on this boat?"

  "Hum, dare to look down on me? I'll duel with you!"

  "Hey, you two boring guys, stop it! Whether he'll come back or not is one thing, whether you can take him in or not is another, but what I'm really curious about now is, what's the name of his warship? How come we still don't know that? Don't you think it's strange?"

  Maria glanced at the noisy sailors, she knew who they were arguing about, and she smiled. The sailors' question also drew her attention.

  Tang Jie's warship seemed to really have no name, what would he name his own warship?