Chapter 292: with translation of chapter title

Giant Dragon Islands.

This archipelago is very vast, the sea area where the archipelago is located exceeds 1200 kilometers, it lies to the northwest of the Holy Elf Empire and to the southwest of the White Continent's Thus line: fengbao yang.

The continent to the east of the archipelago is the territory of the Holy Elf Empire; further north is a steep mountain range running northeast–southwest, called the Heaven Pillar Mountains.

The Heaven Pillar Mountains are not only high but also very broad in terrain, forming a natural barrier between the Radiant Empire and the Holy Elf Empire.

Precisely because of this mountain range's existence, although the two countries dislike each other, large-scale ground conflict is hard to erupt.

For the same reason, the geostrategic position of the Dragon Islands becomes very important.

It is the gateway for the Radiant Empire to enter the Elf world on a large scale.

If the Elves lose control of the Dragon Islands, the Radiant Empire could use it as a springboard to block all the Elf Empire's sea outlets in the Thus line: fengbao yang and pose a huge threat to the Elf homeland.

Thus, this place has become an arena where the two nations' forces clash.

The archipelago has a total of 21 large islands each over 30,000 square kilometers in area, plus countless small islands.

At this moment, the Radiant Empire has already occupied the nine large islands in the north.

The twelve large islands in the south, especially the largest Moonlight Island, remain firmly under the Elves' control.

In the archipelago region, reefs are densely scattered, and safe channels navigable by large warships are very limited; during wartime, the waters where these channels lie become the biggest flashpoint of naval conflict.

That day, about 300 kilometers north of Moonlight Island, in the Star Sea, another fierce naval battle erupted.

This time, the attacking side was the Elf Legion.

The purpose was to cut off the Radiant Fleet's support for Dragon Scale Island, buying time for another Elf Legion to retake Dragon Scale Island.

High above the distant battlefield, the sun god Ausela and the newly ascended Star Goddess Xixi each sat on a giant dragon, using magic to watch the fierce battle on the faraway sea.

In this naval battle, the Radiant Fleet dispatched a total of four warships: one 100-meter-long large warship and three 70-meter-long medium warships, distributed within a sea area of five kilometers radius.

Besides that, about 100 aircraft were flying in the sky.

The Elf Legion had no iron warships nor aircraft, but deployed a full hundred sea dragons, a hundred flying dragons, as well as ten thousand underwater combat merfolk and ten thousand flying succubi.

The dragon warriors were the main attackers.

Among them, the sea dragons reach up to 35 meters in length and weigh up to 120 tons, using various pure water spells as their primary means of attack.

The flying dragons have an average wingspan of 40 meters and weigh ten tons, employing dragon breath of various attributes as their combat means.

Because the physical and magical defenses of the human warships are extraordinarily strong, all the flying dragons are poisonous green dragons.

Their exhaled poisonous dragon breath can violently corrode anything it touches, including magical shields.

As for the merfolk warriors and flying succubi, they serve as assistants to the dragon warriors.

Some draw fire and create attack opportunities for the dragon warriors; others grant the dragon warriors protective spells, dispel harmful magic, and heal wounds.

Still others continuously pour their own power into the dragon warriors' bodies, granting them greater endurance in battle.

At this moment, the two armies are fiercely clashing on the sea surface.

Boom~~~~ boom~~~~

A thunderous tremor continued to come from the battlefield without cease.

The noise was louder than thunder, with extremely high frequency, almost forming a continuous sheet.

That was the human warships' Black Stone cannons, each ship having roughly five guns.

On average they could fire ten rounds per minute, shooting very far with tremendous power, though their aim was slightly off.

They look impressive, but against either the Elf navy or air force, the threat they pose is quite limited.

Ausela softly said: "Master, the human Black Stone cannons pose little threat to our forces in naval combat, but they are extremely terrifying to the army."

"Their cannons can reach up to fifteen kilometers, hitting fixed targets with great accuracy and massive power; a barrage often inflicts devastating blows on our coastal land installations."

Xixi more accurately said, it is De Rui Tan's mortal incarnation, and she slightly frowned.

"This cannon's power is indeed astonishing."

He roughly estimated that even if a Truth Dragon were hit head-on, it would suffer severe injuries and crash.

Probably only a Truth Terrain Shield Dragon, specially reinforced for defense, could withstand its attack head-on.

And just thinking of the Truth Dragon, De Rui Tan's mood instantly became very irritable.

This thing's frontal combat power is indeed fierce, but unfortunately it is prone to illness.

Having shaken off his bad mood, he continued to observe the battlefield.

Besides the astonishingly powerful cannons, the human warships also possess many other high-powered weapons.

One is the Light Array.

Medium warships have two each, large warships have four each.

These Light Arrays burst at an extremely high frequency, emitting piercing golden light lines that dance back and forth in the sky like blades.

Compared to the Black Stone cannons, these golden light lines have considerably less absolute power, posing little threat to the flying dragons.

But against the flying succubi, they are an extremely lethal threat.

If a succubus is swept by a light line, its magical shield cannot block it at all, and its body will be directly cut in two.

They are also fired with exceptional accuracy, making them extremely hard to dodge.

Fortunately, their numbers are not large, their effective range is not far—power drops sharply beyond two kilometers—so although they cause fearsome casualties, they do not create an overwhelming advantage.

Another weapon is the miniature ultra-high-speed cannon array.

These look somewhat like the Black Stone cannons, but they fire extremely fast and are quite accurate.

Once fired, they spew a large sheet of metal barrage onto the sea surface.

Their power is considerably greater than that of the Light Arrays, able to inflict significant damage on dragon warriors; if they endure more than five seconds head-on, they are done for.

They can strike not only the sky but also shallow water.

They drive the sea dragons and merfolk in the water to not dare surface, and force the flying dragons in the sky to scatter everywhere to evade.

There is also a kind of deep-sea bomb.

This thing can advance in the sea, rush near the target, then explode violently.

The good news is, its forward speed is not fast, and its aim is not accurate.

The bad news is, its power is truly great.

Once it explodes, within a hundred meters of the blast, all merfolk warriors will die, and sea dragons will lose their combat ability.

Moreover, aside from these high-power weapons, the defense of human warships is also extraordinarily impressive.

Not only does the warship's hull use large amounts of steel, but the magical shield outside the hull is also extraordinarily thick.

Especially that large warship, its shield actually extends over twenty meters.

Moreover, the types are diverse, including pure water, force energy, and lightning.

Its strength is also astonishingly strong; the corrosive dragon flame of the venomous green dragon must be sprayed for at least half a minute to break the shield.

Faced with human powerful weapons, flying dragons simply cannot have such a long attack time.

Even more frightening, the shield's power seems endless.

As long as it isn't shattered in one go, it immediately recovers to its original state, leaving viewers with an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

Compared to these thick-skinned, high-attack surface warships, the performance of human aircraft is merely average.

Their speed and flight agility are inferior to flying dragons; after a round of aerial dogfight, flying dragons can easily achieve a 1-to-30 exchange ratio.

So, after only a short while, human aircraft withdrew far from the battlefield.

After a fierce battle, the Elven corps suffered heavy casualties, while the human fleet, aside from consuming large amounts of weapons and ammunition, remained basically unscathed.

Within the Elven corps, the most impressive performance came not from dragon warriors, but from the explosive fruit thrown by flying female demons.

Each such explosive fruit is about the size of a human head; a flying female demon can carry five or six of them, fly to high altitude, and then hurl them far at human warships using throwing techniques.

Because the warships are huge and not fast, they can often hit their target.

De Rui Tan could see clearly that whenever the explosive fruit fell, human soldiers would try every means to intercept it, but some always got through.

Thus, when five or six head-sized explosive fruits detonate together on a warship's shield, they often cause a massive shock to the shield.

Several times, it even briefly pierced the shield.

After watching for a while, De Rui Tan said, "If the explosive fruit is so useful, why not make more of them?"

Aosela showed a bitter smile: "Master, the explosive fruit's power is indeed huge, but it is very difficult to produce. We lack a large tree that can efficiently grow explosive fruit."

De Rui Tan immediately replied: "That's not a difficult matter; it will be ready soon."

He decided to mass-produce explosive fruits, making them the main attack method for the Elven corps.

At this moment, the battle situation ahead gradually became clear.

Although the human fleet is very formidable, its numbers are ultimately few.

Although the Elven corps suffered heavy losses, their numbers hold a huge advantage.

After a fierce fight, the human side's combat materiel consumption was enormous, its endurance began to fall short, and it gradually fell into a disadvantage.

The human fleet began to turn and retreat.

De Rui Tan was not satisfied with this battle result.

"The battle losses are too great, and the attack efficiency is too low; we must improve thoroughly."

Five thousand years ago, when he left the plane, an Elven corps similar to today's possessed the power to crush the entire plane.

Even dispatching just a few flying dragons could cause a small human nation to collapse.

But this time upon his return, the same battle corps, with numbers greatly increased, was actually heavily suppressed by a small human fleet.

From start to finish, our side suffered heavy losses, while the enemy could retreat with dignity.

Such a victory bought with lives left him feeling very stifled.

Originally, he thought that although they were somewhat embarrassed, the Elves would ultimately win.

But just then, the battlefield situation suddenly changed! Suddenly, a dense sound of wind and thunder appeared from the distant sky.

Several seconds later, hundreds of white lines flew in at great speed, like white swords, straight into the battlefield.

As soon as the white lines reached the battlefield, they began to turn at high speed in the air, specifically targeting dragon warriors.

'Boom~~ boom~~ boom~~~'

In a burst of dense explosions, the number of flying dragons in the sky and sea dragons in the water instantly dropped by ninety percent.

De Rui Tan could see clearly that when these white swords struck a flying dragon, they triggered an extremely violent explosion.

It easily tore open a huge gash in the dragon warrior's body, and in serious cases directly shattered it into fragments.

With such injuries, not to mention survival, even the soul could be scattered.

The change was truly too sudden and too brutal.

One could see that the Elven warriors were all stunned, many even involuntarily retreating.

The human fleet quickly seized the opportunity, launched a counterattack, and instantly caused astonishing casualties.

Within a few minutes, over a thousand Elven warriors fell.

The battle situation instantly reversed!

The human fleet did not linger, quickly changed course, and rushed at full speed toward Dragon Scale Island, which needed support.

De Rui Tan frowned and said, "What is this again?"

Aosela's face was also full of shock: "It should be a magical device developed by humans, called a high-speed explosive aircraft."

"It has appeared before, but not in such numbers, nor with such agility, so the threat was not great."

After a pause, the shock on Aosela's face turned into bitterness.

"Master, since we increased our troops, the Radiant Empire has also greatly increased its strength, and their growth outpaces ours by a lot, so we remain at a disadvantage."

"If this continues, Moonlight Island may not be able to hold on."

De Rui Tan listened expressionlessly: "Is there any way to respond?"

Almost none, unless we deploy the Truth Warriors.

De Rui Tan had also realized that, but not because the Truth Warriors could head‑on block these flameburst aircraft; rather, the Truth Warriors are swift and have long range, enabling them to strike back and shoot the aircraft down before they get hit.

He could see that as long as they shoot down these flameburst aircraft from beyond 500 meters, their side can remain completely unharmed.

However, the Truth Warriors have a serious flaw and cannot be used for the time being.

After a few moments of thought, De Rui Tan made a decision.

On the Storm Continent front, we have already occupied sixty percent of the land—enough for the short term.

On that continent, we have shifted from offense to defense and are fully expanding the forest sea to provide war resources for the empire.

At the same time, we will move our main force back to the Dragon Isles and completely drive the Radiant Empire out of the archipelago.

Aosela felt a surge of joy and replied, "Yes, master."

He then asked, "Master, what about this battle before us?"

"Retreat, and fall back to the next line of defense."

"Yes."

De Rui Tan asked again, "Aren't there two Mortal Empires? Why do we only see the Radiant Empire's troops, and not the Natural Empire's?"

"The Natural Empire has not yet entered the war, but they have given the Radiant Empire substantial aid; most of those flameburst aircraft just now came from the Natural Empire."

"Not participating?"

De Rui Tan's brows furrowed again as he recalled the incredibly thick soul‑mist, and he asked, "How much do you know about the Natural Empire?"

Aosela's face showed a hint of embarrassment: "Master, not much."

Worried about being punished, he immediately explained: "The Natural Empire lies behind the Radiant Empire, really too far away; its internal intelligence organs have strong counter‑espionage capabilities, and as soon as our people infiltrate, they are detected. So we really know very little about the Natural Empire."

De Rui Tan understood: "In other words, we basically don't know what the Natural Empire is up to."

"Pretty much."

Aosela nodded, but immediately added: "However, the strength of the two Mortal Empires is not greatly different; the Radiant Empire might even be somewhat stronger."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because the Natural Empire only recently unified; at least ten years ago, the Radiant Empire was clearly superior and had been suppressing the Natural Empire."

"Furthermore, although we are mainly facing the Radiant Empire's warriors, the Natural Empire's aid is also substantial, so in essence we are at war with both Mortal Empires."

That argument was still reasonable, but it did not satisfy De Rui Tan.

Aosela knew De Rui Tan had been in a bad mood lately, fearing punishment, and quickly added: "Master, we have also recently learned another piece of news."

"What news?"

"The Natural Empire's emperor Luosen has sent a marriage proposal to the Radiant Empire's Empress Zhuo Ya; she has agreed and is preparing to hold the wedding in three months."

"It is said that, to preserve the self‑esteem of the Radiant Empire's citizens, the wedding will be held in the imperial palace of Mei Da Xilin."

After a pause, Aosela added: "At that time, Luosen will appear in the Radiant Imperial Palace."

"Mmm~~~ interesting~~~ interesting~~~"

De Rui Tan was very pleased with this news.

He had never given up on the decapitation tactic, but the enemy was simply too good at hiding, and he could never find their hiding place.

Now that this has come up, he immediately turned his thoughts to it.

"Luosen this guy still has some tricks; relying on me alone to assassinate him would be too risky."

"I will prepare thoroughly."

(End of chapter)