Chapter 400: An Unfair Battle (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The flags.h.i.+p’s alarm was only triggered when the bone fish got five-hundred meters away from the wars.h.i.+ps.
“What’s going on?” An officer walked out of the cabin and asked.
“I don’t know. The magic alarm went off, it seems that the enemy got close to us.”
“Where are the guards?”
“They’re at the mast, but they didn’t see anything.”
The officer thought and decided for safety reasons he should tell someone. He turned around and walked towards the captain’s room to let the higher ups decide if they should issue the alarm to the entire fleet.
When he came before the captain’s room, he saw the black robed mage that was always composed come das.h.i.+ng out. The mage looked terrified as he ran towards the deck.
The black robed mage dashed towards to deck and dispersed his perceptions. Then, he heard explosions rising and subsiding there. More than a hundred living organisms. .h.i.t all the wars.h.i.+ps. The black robed mage could feel the deck shaking and he shouted, “Mage group, abandon the s.h.i.+p! Quick! Abandon the s.h.i.+p!”
Among the bone spirits that attack the wars.h.i.+ps, at least half of them ran towards the rudders first. Once the rudders were damaged, even if they could mend the leak at the bottom of the s.h.i.+p, they would not be able to leave. Even if they used magic to control water current, the s.h.i.+ps could only go forward in a straight line, That made it easy for the enemy to trail behind.
Bloodstones that the bone spirits carried ignited and made loud explosion noises, they could even feel the vibration from afar underwater. The alchemical boat was not even one mile away from the fleet under the ice. Such close attacks almost finished the battle within one minute.
The enemy was too careless, they did not monitor underwater at all. On Myers Mainland, underwater attacks were rarely seen, but it was a common strategy to consider.
Among the twelve wars.h.i.+ps, the eight fully armed commercial s.h.i.+ps received the most damage as all the commercial s.h.i.+ps were attacked by twelve bone spirits. There was no magic array defending the bottom of the s.h.i.+p. When the bone spirits knocked into them from the bottom, they knocked a few hole directly. The winged skeleton used multiple attack methods and one fully armed commercial s.h.i.+p was. .h.i.t on the same spot by eight bone spirits. Its tremendous explosion almost broke the s.h.i.+p into two pieces from the middle.
That was not the only s.h.i.+p and almost none escaped. Before the people on the s.h.i.+p responded, the bottom of the s.h.i.+p had a big hole that was four meters in diameter. The body of the s.h.i.+p cracked along the hole and slowly sunk.
It was already night time, most of the sailing crews or the warriors were already resting. The minority of the patrollers jumped into the water to swim onto the ice sheet. Without a lifeboat and in seawater at such temperature, it made the human body lose its temperature very quickly. Even though the ice sheet was just a few hundred meters away from the fleet, these people lost their senses really quickly. Only a few swordsmasters could get through it with the sword aura in their body. They were s.h.i.+vering when they got to the ice sheet.
The black robed mage was surprised and angry, he flew in the air to look at the battle below. He had yet to see the traces of their enemy. He could not be blamed as wars.h.i.+ps from east island nations and the unconquerable fleet in Cloudflow Empire were different. The fleet from Cloudflow Empire had boats that were in charge of guarding and they could cover dozens of miles of sea area, including s.p.a.ce underwater.
The alchemical boat might not be discovered by the monitor boats from Cloudflow, but once they attacked, that would expose their target.
Very quickly, there were another four gray robed mages that flew into the air, next to Youxi Maso. They were all grade-6 grand mage that were unsure about the situation.
“You guys head back, bring everyone in the mage group to fight for lifeboats.” The black robed mage knew that even if he found the enemy then, he would not be able to change the fact that the fleet sunk. He suddenly regretted his earlier actions, “If we went onto the ice sheet earlier to trigger the final attack, would this be happening?”
Four grade-6 gray robed mages flew back to gather people from the mage group to leave the s.h.i.+p. The black robed mage guessed correctly, all the mages on each wars.h.i.+p had not realized the danger that they were in. After the attack, the first thing these mages tried was to repair the wars.h.i.+ps with magic.
To use magic to repair the wars.h.i.+p was just a temporary solution, the correct way was to have mages mend the hole with magic and at the same time have the carpenter fix the leak with material. They must fix the hole entirely before the magic lost its effect. No matter how many magic chords a mage had, it was impossible to sustain the boat and prevent it from sinking otherwise.
The person who was directing the carpenters had fled and those carpenters already ran to the deck to look for lifeboats. The four main wars.h.i.+ps were damaged too badly and those who were in charge of mending the s.h.i.+p knew that even with the mages’ a.s.sistance it was impossible for them to fix the s.h.i.+p. On a two-hundred meter long wars.h.i.+p, there were at least twenty holes now.
There was a total of forty members in the mage group and these forty mages would not be able to block all the holes.
The winged skeleton did well. He had forty-eight bone fish attack one s.h.i.+p at the same time, the defence magic array on the bottom of the s.h.i.+p would struggle for a while until it lost its effect. The bone spirits attacked in batches, they could attack the position on the bottom of the s.h.i.+p which had the weakest protection. They could also attack the same spot repeatedly. These defence magic arrays were not activated entirely, hence they could not take such frequent tremendous explosions.
If they were the armored wars.h.i.+ps from Cloudflow, they could withstand the attacks for a while, but the wars.h.i.+ps from the eastern island nations put their metal armor above the waterline. Their underwater defences were much weaker. By doing so they could increase travel speed and save on cost, but it was a vital flaw during battle.
The two magic wars.h.i.+ps from Sregl Island would not sink so quickly even if the defence magic was not activated. If the attack number was insufficient, the two wars.h.i.+ps would not be damaged much. As long as there were enough mages on the s.h.i.+p, they would be able to mend the leaks.
The Pan’s Turtle alchemical boat was not built as a wars.h.i.+p. It was amazing enough for an underwater s.h.i.+p that was barely thirty meters long to have such strong attacks. The winged skeleton built a new spirit pool at stern of the s.h.i.+p, as he needed stronger attacks.
The flags.h.i.+p that had the highest defence was slowly slanting to one side. Among the twelve s.h.i.+ps, four out of eight fully armed commercial s.h.i.+ps had sunk. The remaining four fully armed commercial s.h.i.+ps were releasing lifeboats and there were swordsmen escaping and rowing towards the ice sheet constantly.
The border of the ice sheet already had a simple harbor. Once they climbed on, they would survive.
Hong!
One of the lifeboats had an explosion, but it was because a low level mage shot out a fire ball to kill a few soldiers that were fighting for the boat with him. The low level mage did not know how to swim, even if he knew, he would die if he jumped into sea water that was that cold.
In a myth, when adventurers lost their boat in the sea, they would be carried by the current until they met an abandoned island. In actual fact, if there was no special skill or equipment, the temperature of the sea water was sufficient enough to take one’s life away.
The surrounding soldiers got p.i.s.sed and drew their long knives, wanting to harm the mage. Before life or death, they had no respect for the mages. Suddenly, a grade-6 gray robed mage, raised his hands and released a Wind Blade spell to cut the swordsmen in half.
“Mage leaves first.” The gray robed mage looked coldly at the remaining soldiers. The soldiers were eager to take action, but they left the lifeboat quickly to go and fight for the other life boats.
On the sea surface, there were a few bone spirits that were spying and sent images back to the Pan’s Turtle alchemical boat. The winged skeleton smiled, “A motley force that knows no discipline. Master won’t run into any trouble fighting them.”
The winged skeleton was right, these soldiers were gathered last minute as the situation in the eastern island nations was special. Sometimes, there were dozens of thousands of people on an island. Even if it was a nation, the nation had no ability to build large scale wars.h.i.+ps. The Eighteen-Power Allied Force was actually formed by multiple small countries.
When there was danger, the soldiers panicked. Everyone knew that it was impossible that their own kings had deterrence. If they wanted to live, they had to fight for life boats with their allies.
The mentality of islanders was something the Qin people could not understand as well as the winged skeleton. If these soldiers cooperated, more than half of them could escape to the ice sheet. The distance between the wars.h.i.+p and the ice sheet was only a few meters after all and the number of lifeboats were not too few. It would take at least half an hour for the s.h.i.+p to sink and this half an hour would be sufficient for the lifeboats to come back and forth for a few rounds.
The fighting among themselves led to more death. Even if they lived, they would not have trust anymore and they would not be able to fight together. If Saleen were to attack then, the end of these people would be certain.
More and more soldiers got onto the ice sheet and looked back at their s.h.i.+ps that were slowly sinking. Then, there were three huge shadows that flew from the mainland. Their bodies were eight meters away and there was no blood or flesh, but only soul flames in their eyes.
Three huge spirits of the dead came before the border of the ice sheet, but they did not do anything to the soldiers. They only did one thing at the same time, which was to take out their scepters and stab them into the ice sheet.
“Thanks to Shanglan for giving me the strength of truth.” Diyabannersa’s scepter was giving out a ear deafening roar.
“Thanks to Shanglan for giving me the strength of lies.” Judikaka looked far towards the sea and his scepter was quivering in his hands. It made a huge crack on the ice sheet.
“Thanks to Shanglan for giving me the strength of ridicule.” Banchajanna shot gray streaks of light from his scepter and set up a humongous death spirit magic array in front of them. More spirits of the dead walked out from the magic array and walked towards the soldiers on the border of the ice sheet.
As the three Kings were doing this, they had a thought at the same time, “Saleen is so treacherous.”
Saleen gave them an order, which was to break the ice sheet, so that those soldiers could not come ash.o.r.e. If the enemy had strong mages, the three Kings only need to hold up the mages and Saleen would take care of the rest.
As expected, when the black robed mage realized the three terrifying death spirits were breaking the ice sheet, he could not help but bring four gray robed mages. He flew towards the three Kings.
“Stop!” Youxi Maso roared forgetting to speak the mainland common language.
“Mage, do you want us to stop? Then, fight a battle with us.” Judikaka said and flew into the air as he sighed in his heart. Saleen made a correct guess. The enemy had a sorcerer. Three fighting against one would not be much of a fight though. The rest of the four gray robed mages could not bring much harm to the Kings.
On the ice sheet a few miles away, four magic beast swordsmen brought four-hundred Caucasus warriors on magic wolves looking from afar without charging forward. If the three Kings managed to attract the sorcerer, he could solve the remaining problem himself.
It was an unfair battle, but it was their fault for invading.