Toz still had enough mana left to use magic, so even if he couldn't move due to the wound in his abdomen, he would still be able to defend himself. However, that was if only he could get rid of the wind aura surging through his body and interfering with his mana.
His suit of void metal had softened the aura as it entered his body, turning it from a blazing storm to a moderate breeze. It was a lot better than it could have been. But it was still the martial energy of a ninth level fighter that Toz didn't have any control over.
Toz opened his eyes, expecting to see chains flying over in his direction. However, the rustling of chains wasn't because Nester was attacking Toz or supporting Dristel.
Nester didn't have any leeway to pay attention to what happened within the cage of chains. He was confident Dristel would win, so he only spared some attention to what happened on the ship and dedicated the rest of his attention to the rest of the fleet.
Unlike Dristel, Nester didn't know that the three pirate leaders were on the two sailboats sailing around and looting or destroying the remnants of the fleet, so he didn't have any inhibitions to stop him from attacking the two sailboats.
Doing that would naturally spread Nester's power thin. Neither his attacks nor his net would be very effective, but he didn't care. He had to contain the mage Dristel was fighting with, and he also had to save his comrades.
However, he pretty quickly realized he had kicked an iron door with a bare foot when one of his chains turned into nothingness instead of demolishing one of the sailboats. When Nester's chains got severed, the part not connected directly to him got dispelled since it didn't have any mana maintaining it.
But this time, his chains weren't cut into pieces, yet they still gradually disappeared, starting from the link closest to the sailboat.
Nester didn't know what was happening with his chains, but he felt his mana disappearing like water in the desert, so he cut his losses and severed the chain himself.
Nester realized it wouldn't be as easy to capsize the sailboats as he first thought, but he had at least saved some of his comrades by grabbing the attention of the people on the sailboats. He wasn't sure that it was a good thing, though.
He couldn't damage either of the boats with his chains. The chains either got destroyed like the first one or slashed, burned, and torn to pieces. Nester couldn't use his full power since he was helping his admiral, but he felt like it wouldn't have mattered even if he wasn't maintaining the net. In fact, dispelling the net might make the situation even worse.
Nester hadn't seen what Toz was fully capable of, but if he was someone even the admiral had trouble defeating, it would be bad news to let him escape Dristel's clutches. Considering the battlefield, the side with Toz, who could move freely through the Void, would have an overwhelming advantage.
Nester was confident in his admiral's strength, but he also knew that Dristel had blocked the beam of starlight that knocked him unconscious with nothing more than the tremors of power from its passing.
If Nester let Toz escape and turned the two separate battles into a single, slightly larger one, he and Dristel would be on the losing side. Nester gritted his teeth as he maintained the cage and resolved to hold off the two sailboats for as long as he could, hopefully until Dristel was finished and could help him.
However, Nester quickly lost hope.
When the two sailboats came close, Nester saw who was on them. As the fleet's second lieutenant, Nester had access to enough information that the leaders of two of the three big pirate crews of Pirate Haven, the Bunglehoppers, and some cats were on the two boats. He didn't think much about the cats since most of his attention was on the crew leaders and the Poison Witch, Hayar.
Nester gulped in dread, but he had no intentions of giving up. His loyalty to Dristel wouldn't let him.
As Nester's attention was solely focused on the two sailboats, he missed two things.
After he woke up, Nester almost instantly helped Dristel. However, after throwing Toz onto the ship and setting up the net, Nester looked around and confirmed that the whale responsible for the beam of starlight didn't have the means to attack again. He wasn't surprised. Such a powerful and consuming attack was bound to leave its user drained and exhausted afterward.
However, that was several moments ago. Usually, those moments wouldn't have mattered. But whales rarely had forests of void trees on their backs.
One of the discoveries Taienra had made regarding the void trees was that they acted like an extension of her body, and the mana that would have gone into her starlight crystals entered the trees instead.
Taienra had used the mana in her body to launch the beam. Her body was still too tired to launch another attack like that. But the mana entering her body from the trees allowed her to continue using magic, even if it was weaker than usual. It wasn't powerful enough to interfere with the ship's barrier or Toz's fight with Dristel. However, it was more than enough to coordinate an attack with Asilean.
The other cats had to stay on the sailboats like the others, but Asilean could travel freely through the Void. That was the other thing Nester wasn't prepared for.
Nester's only looked at the pirates and cats in front of him, completely missing Asilean sneaking up on him from behind and Taienra slowly but surely taking control over and amplifying the passive starlight in the surroundings.
Nester was an eighth level mage, while Asilean and Taienra were only at the sixth level. He wasn't a match for the eighth and ninth level pirates, but they were too far away to attack him just yet.
Asilean, who wasn't limited by the speed of the sailboat, snuck through the Void and, using the Taienra's starlight magic, arrived unnoticed right next to Nester.
