Chaos and Order - A Multiverse Fanfic

The wind died and the sound of waves crashing against rocks and on each other choked.

Sheets of ominous clouds veiled the bright moon, darkening the entire land and sea alike.

A sinister howl echoed everywhere as if ghosts and the dead were crying, welcoming some unnamed pagan deity.

Both Kai's and Jack's heart thumped instantly, the two crystals of the Philosopher's Stone crossing the gap between the iron bars.

This was the sign they had hoped, looked, and waited for, but forgot when trading the Compass had brought no changes to their surroundings.

It was even more so true for Kai, for he was a Contestant.

Kai knew the moment he was to hand over the crystals to Jack Sparrow, they wouldn't remain Artifacts anymore, as this Random World had no concept of Philosopher's Stones, to begin with.

They would become special mystical objects after interacting with the Timeline's laws.

This very thing was happening right now, and somehow… this process of transformation seemed to have resonated with the Compass' wrath over Jack Sparrow's betrayal.

Kai had never cared for what kind of misfortune Jack would face after his return.

But it was Jack, the main Character… he would survive, as he had always.

Or so Kai had thought.

This sudden change caught even him off-guard.

It was as if a strange power that he could never resist was pressing down on him, preventing him from stopping the trade; preventing him from calling the crystals back.

Even Jack Sparrow wanted to snatch his outstretched hand back, it felt.

Too late.

BOOM!

This boom wasn't loud. Nor was it real.

This boom had exploded in the hearts and minds.

In the real world, a pulse, just like the one the gold medallion had sent after coming in contact with the sea, exploded in all directions starting from Jack Sparrow and Kai Stormborn and then engulfing the entire Port Royal, the harbor, the sea, and vanishing into the dark horizons.

The moment this pulse stirred through the port, all Contestants felt it.

But only one person felt it the most, in his heart; and he… wasn't a Contestant.

…

In a bar with demolished walls, a white-bearded man, tall and bulky, but telling a story of lost handsomeness, was drinking rum.

His eyes were cloudy gray as if he had seen just too much of the world.

His breath smelled of rum, ale, and wine; alcohol seemed to be coursing through his veins.

When the broken people of Port Royal looked at him, after being raided down by the pirates, there was nothing but disgust on their faces.

It was then that the pulse arrived, making the old man tremble.

The bottle of rum fell out of his hand, shards of glass shattering and flying everywhere.

A hundred meters up in the air, glass shards like that of a mirror dimension separated, and a man with a golden helmet walked out.

He, too, was trembling all over. "This?! What just happened?!!" he blurted, shaking, looking at the old man in the bar. "No! This is…"

The old man in the demolished bar, who had shown no emotion other than that of a drunken fool, suddenly threw himself to his feet and looked toward Fort Charles.

"Life Stone!" a hoarse, ancient voice escaped his mouth. "I can feel the aura. Yes. It's the Life Stone. Hahaha!"

Under the shocking and bewildered eyes of all, and the helmet-wearing man hovering up midair, the old man laughed outrageously, throwing his hands up.

And then, with a bang, dense black fog burst out of him, becoming a coat and a hat.

It was as if the shadows themselves had come alive.

"My time has finally arrived…" the old man mumbled, laughing like a maniac, "… once again. The Day of the Shadow will return, and this time there would be no one who can stop it.

"SHADOW ARMY! RISE!!! DEVOUR EVERYONE! BRING ME THE LIFE STONE!!!"

Hands, legs, heads, and torsos, dead and rotten, shot out of the ground and the walls, and every non-living thing.

It was as if the dead had taken the forms of shadows, crawling their way out of cold hell.

The logic-defying combination of the Compass' wrath and transformation of the Philosopher's Stones had woken up a hibernating legend.

This was a power that was not supposed to be in this timeline anymore, for it had already surpassed the level that was known to the Contestants as the 7th floor.

This power… belonged to this old man.

A Character, who shouldn't exist in this timeline, not with the Overall Grade allotted to this World.

A Character, who would become the nightmare of all Contestants.

Pirate Lord Henry Morgan…

… The Shadow Lord!!!

This was a title most of the Contestants familiar with Pirates of the Caribbean world had heard of.

Even then, they would have never imagined hearing the name of this legend in this timeline, and at this point in the main Storyline.

The Shadow Lord, or Sir Henry Morgan, was a legendary Character; a Pirate Lord of the Brethren Court.

At the dawn of the Golden Age of Piracy, Pirate Lord Henry Morgan had helped write the Code of the Pirate Brethren with Bartholomew, another Pirate Lord.

Not only was he a knight of England, but, in his later years, he had also become the lieutenant governor of Jamaica, of which the town of Port Royal was a part.

In his times, Sir Henry Morgan's atrocities and reputation knew no bounds, reaching to the furthest seas a man could find.

Later, the other Pirate Lords betrayed him, selling him to the Government.

Nonetheless, Henry Morgan had turned that foul episode around miraculously, too.

One could even say that he was the Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa of his time.

But these things couldn't even come close to the prime tale, which had turned this mere Pirate Lord and knight of England into an Immortal Legend.

According to various lores, Morgan died in Port Royal on August 25, 1688.

Only later did the world find out that, through unknown circumstances, the Pirate Lord had moved to a secret laboratory on a remote island where he began to study Alchemy.

Morgan then spent years studying all sorts of science, sorcery, and black magic.

Not only that, but he also discovered a way to live forever, prolonging his life.

When the world came to know about this, by the 1710s, Pirate Lord Henry Morgan had already become the Shadow Lord; a master of Alchemy.

With his power, the Shadow Lord created the Shadow Army; an army of inanimate objects brought to life by magic.

Remembering the injustice done to him long ago, the Shadow Lord was bent on having his revenge on the Pirate Lords on the Day of the Shadow; a self-created event when he would rise and all the world would be crushed beneath his boots.

However, the Shadow Gold, a magical elixir and the source of his power was stolen from him by Tia Dalma's Zombie, Alex, and scattered throughout the world.

Later, when the time came to resist the Shadow Lord once and for all, Tia Dalma sent Jack Sparrow to collect the scattered pieces.

This adventure later came to be known as — the Quest of the Shadow Gold!

At last, the Pirate Lords and Marines collectively defeated the Shadow Lord, ending the disaster.

Who knew he hadn't died, but biding his time to stumble upon an infamous theory he had drawn ages ago?

The Life Stone!!!

And who knew the Shadow Lord would just happen to be at Port Royal at the same time Life Stone appeared in the world?

There were just too many coincidences as if the negative forces of nature were guiding the events of the mortal world.

Then there was the fact that Characters like Henry Morgan, though abnormally powerful, weren't a part of the ongoing main storyline anymore.

One could understand the significance of their presence from the fact that their powers exceeded what the timeline offered to the Contestants, according to the Overall Grade.

This Pirates of the Caribbean Random World had an Overall Grade of D+, equivalent to the 6th floor.

That meant the strongest Contestant allowed in this world could be the most powerful Top-level 6th-floor Contestant.

But no matter how strong, the Contestant from above 2nd Set just couldn't teleport here.

The moment the Shadow Lord had sensed the Philosopher's Stone, he brought out his hibernating power like a tempest, his strength already reaching the level of a strong 7th-floor Contestant.

And it was still rising!

These Characters were just not allowed to co-exist with the ongoing storyline, for their presence signified only one thing — An Anomaly!!!

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