Chapter 170

Six in the morning.

The morning light was faint.

This is the first summer month, with a slightly hot southeast wind blowing.

At the Deweilan naval port in northern Aaron, amidst dignified commands, warships lined up in neat formation on the sea.

The giant sailing ships hoisted their sails and took the lead in sailing north toward Weilan's Aolan Cape.

Because Aolan Cape is closest to Aaron, only 160 kilometers away, even at the speed of sailing warships, using gale magic artifacts to assist acceleration along the way, they could arrive at their destination in just six hours.

The fleet's goal was to destroy all invading Weilan naval forces, ensure the smooth flow of shipping lanes, and destroy all land defense facilities at Aolan Cape to prepare for the subsequent landing of the Lion Legion.

On the balcony of the naval port management building, accompanied by a group of followers, Marquis Gaunte watched the fleet head north with binoculars.

Not until the binoculars could no longer see them did he put them down and smile at the followers beside him: "Our fleet can destroy the Weilan fleet at least three times!"

He couldn't think of any possibility of failure, and the burning flames of royal power ignited in his heart:

"Dange, oh Dange~ Once the fleet recaptures Weilan, this throne of yours will belong to me!"

How should Dange be dealt with afterwards?

The Marquis raised his hand to twist his curled mustache, thinking carefully, and then came up with a good idea.

"Since you don't like to bathe, I'll have people bathe you every day, breaking your Natural Church commandments, haha~"

On the sea, the Lion Fleet formed a combat formation with the Black Stone fleet as the main force and the sailing fleet as support.

And the middle and high-level officers of every warship were almost all nobles, and two-thirds of them were from the pro-war faction of nobles.

The nobles almost completely controlled this fleet, and the power of this fleet accounted for more than 30% of Aaron's naval power.

Once this battle is won, the pro-war faction will gain huge prestige and will immediately be able to dominate Aaron's political scene.

The flagship of the fleet is called 'Maritime Sovereignty', and the captain is Sir Gaunte, the younger brother of Marquis Gaunte.

Competing for the Aaron throne, of course, the whole family goes together.

At this moment, the Knight sat in the sturdy command cabin of the Black Stone warship, surrounded by a circle of psychic communication mages, sixty in total.

They constantly transmitted the Admiral's orders to each ship, and at the same time reported the information fed back from each ship to Sir Gaunte.

When the fleet crossed the midline of the Gilded Strait, a communication mage turned his head and said: "Admiral, the Sky Hunters are in position, ready to fight at any time."

"Very good!"

The last hidden worry in Sir Gaunte's heart disappeared, and he felt very excited.

He issued an order: "Closely scout the surrounding situation, and report immediately if any abnormality is detected!"

He had a vague premonition that the Weilan navy should be not far ahead.

His premonition was correct, because about half an hour after he issued the order, a 'buzzing' thunderous sound came from the distant sky.

By this time, many people already recognized this sound, so although they were nervous, they were not panicked.

Sir Gaunte immediately ordered: "The Weilan airplanes are here~ Psychic Mage Corps, open the Psychic Ring immediately!"

After speaking, he immediately shouted to his subordinates: "Confirm the position of the Hunters again, it's time for them to appear!"

The communication mage inquired immediately.

Before long, he replied: "Admiral, the Hunters are in position, just waiting for the airplanes to approach."

Just then, black dots began to appear in the distant sky, getting larger and larger, with as many as 25 of them.

Seeing the number of black dots, Sir Gaunte was not surprised but happy: "Aha~ Is this the number of all Weilan airplanes? I knew this kind of thing was hard to build!"

In his view, how could such a powerful magic artifact be easy to build?

He immediately issued a new order: "If any airplane falls into the water later, the nearby warships should immediately abandon combat missions and rush over to salvage them with all their might."

Such good things, of course, must be salvaged back to Aaron, studied carefully, and then find a way to replicate them.

Just then, the situation in the sky changed again.

The airplanes split into two batches.

One batch hovered in the distance, while four were separated to fly over.

It could be seen that the other side was flying very high, at least 1,500 meters, completely exceeding the limit of ground strike distance.

If it were before, Gaunte would definitely be uneasy, because this meant he could only be beaten without being able to fight back.

But now, the situation is different.

He came to the porthole, staring tightly at the black dots in the sky, waiting for the mysterious Hunters hidden in the dark to strike.

In his anticipation, the Hunters did indeed strike!

I saw a large number of incandescent light rays suddenly shooting out from the empty sea area nearby, each one thicker than an adult's arm, with over a hundred appearing! This light was like countless sharp swords, violently stabbing at the airplanes in the sky.

It is the Radiant Empire's famous spell, "Light of Judgment".

No, judging from the current situation, it should be called the Judgment Phalanx!

Sir Gaunte was shocked: 'How much mana must this consume!'

With the stabbing of a large number of light rays, the light and shadow on the sea rippled violently, and a fully armed Black Stone fleet gradually emerged.

Vaguely visible on the fleet were flags with a white sun on a black background, which were the Platinum Royal Flags representing the Levinde royal family.

Look at the sky again.

Once the dense light rays came out, most of them missed, but a small half hit the target.

On average, one airplane was hit by at least five or six Lights of Judgment.

This is also normal; although the distance is far and the airplane speed is fast, light is naturally faster! But the situation that occurred greatly exceeded Sir Gaunte's expectations!

'Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!'

It was clearly the airplanes in the sky that were hit, but the ones that eventually exploded were the Levinde warships on the ground.

More accurately, it was the weapons Levinde used to trigger the Judgment Phalanx beams.

These things actually exploded directly! The dazzling Judgment Phalanx of the previous moment became a pile of scrap iron the next.

Sir Gaunte was taken aback: "What's going on? Did the magic artifact malfunction?"

What kind of junk is this, how can it break as soon as it's used, and this is worthy of being called a Sky Hunter? The communication mage immediately replied: "The Levinde side says there are mirrors on the airplanes."

Gaunte was stunned, then puzzled: "Isn't the Light of Judgment not afraid of mirrors?"

"Besides, mirrors don't have brains, and the shooting angles are all different, how could they all return along the original path?"

It's not like he hasn't played with mirrors; is Levinde making up this lame excuse to fool a fool?

But he didn't have time to blame the other side, because the first wave of strikes from the airplanes arrived! Violent psychic strikes descended from the sky, hitting the fleet on the sea like a torrent, erupting on average every 20 seconds, each eruption lasting 5 seconds, with an effective range of up to 500 meters.

The warships on the sea had made special defenses against this move.

Not only was every soldier equipped with a special defensive amulet, but the Psychic Mage Corps also activated a large-scale Psychic Ring.

Both the Levinde warships and the Lion warships did indeed block this powerful psychic strike.

But the performance of the two fleets was different.

The Aaron fleet just gritted its teeth against the psychic strike and continued to head north.

The Levinde fleet activated the concealment array again, and at a glance, it was clear they were preparing to run away.

Under the psychic storm, all psychic communication techniques failed, and Sir Gaunte could only watch helplessly as the Levinde fleet fled.

He cursed: "These deceitful Levinde merchants, I curse you to sleep on the seabed forever!"

Just then, the violent psychic storm disappeared abruptly, and the four airplanes in the sky turned around and flew away.

This seemed like good news, but immediately after, the 21 airplanes that had been hovering in the distance flew over.

They flew very high, exceeding three thousand meters.

This distance was too high; one could only see a small black dot, and couldn't see what the opponent was doing at all.

The naval fleet waited for a long time, but did not suffer any attacks.

Just as Gaunte was puzzled about the opponent's attack method, he suddenly heard a strange sound.

'Drip~~~~~~~'

A bit like a whistle, and a bit like the sound of wind howling.

Before he could recover, dense explosions suddenly appeared on the sea! He clearly saw flames extending forward like a carpet on the sea, extending all the way to the warships, and as soon as the warships were reached by this terrible carpet of fire, the decks immediately fell into a sea of fire.

The Black Stone warships were okay; they could barely hold on, and although there were losses, they did not completely lose their combat effectiveness.

But the wooden sailing warships fell directly into the raging sea of fire.

This one bombing run caused five sailing warships to completely lose their combat effectiveness.

The Levinde warships had just entered stealth, but after being hit like this, they were forced to exit the stealth state again.

They seemed to be specially taken care of; out of ten warships, the decks of six were engulfed in flames.

If the Black Stone warships hadn't been sturdy enough, they might have even sunk.

Sir Gaunte immediately understood: "They are actually throwing explosive fire bombs from the sky!"

This move is not terrible; opening a gale barrier above the warship can prevent the naturally falling explosive fire bombs.

"Gale barrier~~ raise the gale barrier~"

Before the words fell, the communication mage immediately replied: "Admiral, in order to defend against the psychic strike, the mages' mana is almost exhausted, and I'm afraid the barrier won't last long."

Gaunte was slightly surprised, but soon breathed a sigh of relief: "It's not a big problem, the airplanes have all left, their explosive fire bombs must be exhausted."

"Withdraw the gale barrier first, and we'll talk when the airplanes come." But what should be done next? To be honest, he really didn't know.

The situation changed too fast, and he had no experience in dealing with it.

He hadn't even seen the opponent's ships, yet he had lost five warships and more than a thousand soldiers.

It could be seen that the other captains were in a state of extreme confusion, just like him.

No one had ever seen such a way of fighting.

The communication mage constantly relayed the questions of the captains.

"What should we do next?"

Should we continue to fight?

If we fight, how should we fight? Sir Gaunte felt under immense pressure.

Not only did the fate of the entire fleet's soldiers hang on his decision, but so did the fate of his family.

Under immense pressure, a desire to retreat sprouted in his heart.

'The opponent's situation is unknown; retreating to Aaron and preserving strength is the most important thing.'

He had studied the previous battle of the Storm Fleet against the White Sturgeon gunboats and knew the Duke of Weilan's fighting style.

If they were to fight to the death now, nine out of ten times the entire army would be wiped out.

The vague thought quickly turned into a clear will, and he intended to order a retreat.

But before the words left his mouth, he was suddenly interrupted by a terrifying 'boom'.

Before he could react to what was happening, he heard several more 'boom boom boom' sounds, and at the same time, fierce and violent flames poured into the command cabin like a flood.

In an instant, flames surged and iron flowed in the flagship's command cabin.

All the communication mages, including the supreme commander Sir Gaunte, were killed! The battle hadn't really started, and the supreme command was gone!

The remaining warships suddenly drifted forward by inertia like headless flies.

The command cabin of every warship was in chaos, with all kinds of sounds flying everywhere.

"Who is attacking us?"

"What happened to the Admiral?"

"What should we do next?"

In the chaos, inexplicable explosions appeared again.

'Boom boom boom boom~~~'

Almost every warship had explosion sounds, and on every warship, it was the command cabin that exploded, and it exploded several times in a row, the kind that blew the command cabin to pieces.

Whether it was a Lion warship or a Levinde warship, all were bombed indiscriminately.

The command cabin, which had just been in a mess, suddenly became a ruin ravaged by flames, and many charred human bodies were scattered in the ruins.

Even if some were lucky enough not to die, they had one foot in the realm of death, and there was no possibility of being saved at all.

There were a total of seventy warships on the sea, seventy command cabins, and on average, at least three violent explosions occurred inexplicably in each command cabin.

Usually, the first explosion appeared on the outer layer, piercing the warship's surface defense spell, and the second and third directly hit the heavily defended command cabin!

The large fleet suddenly fell into a state of having no leader.

The problem remained the same.

Where is the enemy?

How did they attack? No one knew; the soldiers on the deck, the artillerymen under the deck, and the lucky surviving middle and low-level officers only had two expressions on their faces.

One is despair, the other is confusion.

They had powerful cannons and powerful warships, but they couldn't exert any effect at all, completely reduced to targets for beating.

'Buzz~~ buzz~~'

The airplanes in the sky appeared again, flying in circles above the fleet.

A voice from the high heavens descended.

"Soldiers, you have two paths now."

"First, run away. Then we will hunt you down all the way until we kill every one of you."

"Second, surrender. Drive the warships to continue to Aolan Cape, anchor on both sides of the Aolan River, unload all armaments, and disembark to accept surrender."

"We are merciless to our enemies, but we never wield our blades against those who surrender."

"If you want to live, display the surrender cursor. If you want to be buried in the sea, then run away if you dare!"

The survivors on the warships looked at each other.

This battle could not be fought at all; the noble commanders were all dead, leaving only some middle and lower-level civilian officers.

The enemy didn't know where they were, and there was no other path but to surrender.

'Buzz~ buzz~~~'

One after another, solar light orbs were shot into the sky, forming vertical oval patterns.

"Very good, you have made a wise choice."

"Now, rescue the wounded, and then continue forward."

Half an hour later, the fleet moved forward again, but all the soldiers on the ships were shrouded in depression and confusion.

It is normal to lose a battle; every battle has a loser, but at least one must know how they lost, right? Like this, losing inexplicably is really suffocating.

But no one dared to resist.

Because the opponent's attack was too terrible, both precise and powerful.

Just as the defeated fleet continued to head north, about 20 kilometers away on the sea, 10 high-speed warships followed the defeated fleet north.

On the warships, the cannons had all been dismantled and replaced with long sliding rails, each rail fifty meters long, with four rails per warship, almost covering the entire deck.

At the end of the rail, there was a small delta-wing airplane, with a wingspan of less than 1 meter, less than one-twentieth of a manned airplane.

Its power did not come from a flame jet array, but from a tail motor propeller, and the energy was a large-capacity lightning house inside the small airplane.

The above are the power components, costing 300 Ogre, which can ensure the small airplane flies over the sea at 150 kilometers per hour for half an hour.

The nose of the plane is equipped with about 50 kilograms of trigger thunder medicine, and many steel beads are mixed in the thunder medicine.

This is the explosive component, costing 100 Ogre.

The front end of the warhead is specially made into a concave cone shape to ensure a violent forward shock wave after the explosion, which is enough to penetrate ordinary steel plates.

Then, there is a flight component composed of a flight puppet and a psionic lattice.

The cost is 400 Ogre, which greatly reduces the difficulty of remote control for mages.

Then, there is Luosen's newly developed light and shadow magic core, which constitutes a remote control component.

The cost is 150 Ogre, which allows the mage to stay on the warship and remotely control the airplane in real time, with a maximum remote control distance of 30 kilometers, far exceeding the 3-kilometer range of cannons.

Finally, and most importantly, is an invisibility component composed of a Breathless Crystal Wall lowered to the Fourth Ring and optical invisibility runes, which greatly ensures the success of the surprise attack.

The cost is 300 Ogre.

Simply put, this is an otherworldly version of an unmanned self-destructing stealth airplane.

The total cost is 1,250 Ogre each, the production efficiency is five a day, and a total of 280 were produced, all of which were brought out.

Now only 40 are left.

If the enemy fleet didn't surrender and insisted on fighting to the death, it would be really difficult to handle.

Fortunately, the other side was completely scared into quails.

Luosen was of course also present for such a critical battle.

He was standing in the flagship's command cabin, looking at the situation of the defeated fleet in the distance through the light and shadow array.

Seeing the other side obediently heading north to surrender, he smiled and said to Holland beside him: "Old General, I wasn't wrong, right? The navy of today fights with knowledge and magic."

Courage is useful, but not very useful anymore.

He sighed inwardly: 'The power of radiance is still easy to use; I only developed one small application, and it's so powerful. If it were all developed, wouldn't this world be turned upside down?'

It is also fortunate that the Lord of Radiance does not have a deep understanding of light, otherwise it would not be the Radiant Empire, but the Radiant Continent.

Holland looked at the fleet in the light and shadow.

This was once an invincible object in his heart that could not be resisted.

Now, they have all become losers, and they didn't even see the real opponent from beginning to end.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but couldn't, so his chin beard twitched.

After a long while, he said: "Then what does the Duke plan to do with this batch of soldiers and this batch of ships?"

Luosen smiled: "Use the Black Stone warships yourself, and tell them to buy back the sailing warships. As for the prisoners of war, let them spend money to redeem them; Weilan decides the price."

"If they don't redeem them, the prisoners of war will go to the factory to work; it's never a loss."

Especially Levinde's 10 Black Stone warships, which must have been scraped together by the Levinde royal family by tightening their belts; one ship is probably worth 400,000 to 500,000 Ogre.

Plus the valuable radiant weapons equipped on the ships, it is truly a great treasure.

In short, this wave, he earned a lot.

(End of chapter)