Chapter 1283: Naval Battle (Part 2)

Cloudflow tactics had clear assignments for its units. The diving combat vessels downed the large enemy ships before fielding warships fighting above the waterline, practically carpet-bombing enemy territory using large scale magic equipment.

The Winged Skull did not participate in the second round of attacks. The formations of the fleets were very sparse and the ships were over 1,000 meters away from each other, covering the entire region spanning tens of miles. Even if they did not summon spirits and attacked the enemy personally, the results would still be limited.

The Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship was originally meant for guerilla warfare. The Winged Skull did nothing after downing enemy ships. They simply waited for what was coming next to unfold.

Large alchemy crossbows fired in a frenzy at the Cloudflow warships, as if they had no concerns about breaking their own gear. The mages dared not resist such onslaughts head on and chose to evade instead.

The distance between the assailants and targets was simply too far, making it almost impossible to kill mages using the alchemy crossbows.

While the mages were capable of evading the attacks, the same could not be said for the boats. Large number of boats were downed, and warriors were killed. The surviving warriors took off their armor to avoid drowning right away. However, large magic machinery was seen on the Cloudflow warships, dousing the troops in the water with oil.

The troops panicked. The oil floated on the water surface and could be ignited with a single spark, making escape impossible. The mages were only able to protect themselves and dared not stay within the sea of flames that were about to manifest.

The warship that was spraying the oil was 200 meters long and there were many mages protecting the puppets spraying the oil. Imposa made full use of the puppets’ design.

The mages in the water took to the air and wanted to attack the enemy, but were quickly killed by the Iron Blood Warriors.

The mages from Devil’s Horn saw the tables turned against them and chose to fly towards Devil’s Horn instead. Few were clever enough to fly from the direction they came, and no one pursued them.

The mages who were heading towards Devil’s Horn were in bad luck. The Iron Blood Warriors flew faster than mages in short distances. More Iron Blood Warriors took flight from the decks, surrounding and attacking the mages.

None of the Iron Blood Warriors wore Bug Angel Armors and were not part of the forces attacking Alchemy City. Devil’s Horn was just the beginning. The real battle took place at Alchemy City.

The fleet from Devil’s Horn was large but was ambushed by an even more powerful one by the Cloudflow people. Devil’s Horn had no idea about the existence of diving combat vessels and that turned the battle into a slaughter.

The Cloudflow forces lost none of their ships, while the 19 warships from Devil’s Horn were all downed.

The most notable difference in power lay with the Iron Blood Warriors. If the warriors had not been around, the hundreds of mages onboard the Devil’s Horn’s fleet would have been able to locate every single metal diving combat vessel, and sink every single one of them.

If it had not been for the Iron Blood Warriors, the Devil’s Horn’s mages would have been bold enough to take the enemy ships as their own.

The Cloudflow people continued to hunt every soldier in the water in cold blood. The soldiers had long discarded their gear. When the Cloudflow troops attacked from above, either with alchemy crossbows or magic, none of the soldiers was able to resist.

The Winged Skull unleashed a bone spirit to record the fighting. They found that Grand Duke Iron Blood’s men did not have the usual weaknesses seen among the Cloudflow people. They were very calm and amply brutal.

While they were definitely not Dragon Blood Warriors, they were still probably from Dragon Island. They were isolated from the mainland since young and were the personal troops of the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke’s family was the only ruling class on Dragon Island.

They had limited contact with the Cloudflow Empire, so they felt more like an amalgamation of Qin soldiers and Sikeqinyan mercenaries. They possessed the Qin’s mettle while sporting the brains of the Sikeqinyans.

The Winged Skull was unsure how long the alliance between the Grand Duke and Saleen would last, so they were doing what they should have been doing the most—collecting firsthand intel.

The Cloudflow people did not guard against the skeleton. Outsiders would not be able to understand the Winged Skull’s abilities anyway. The commanders of the underwater warships did not know that the Winged Skull had the intelligence of a powerful professional.

Tens of thousands of strings of information were recorded by the Winged Skull, coalescing into spirit script and stored within scrolls. All of them were about the combat tactics of the Cloudflow people, their combat capacity, as well as combat details. The Winged Skull left no detail out.

Nineteen warships, tens of thousands of soldiers, over 500 mages were destroyed. Half of the diving combat vessels remained behind, lurking where they were. There were still thousands of soldiers on the surface who were not killed.

The Cloudflow people did not bother rescuing them and took the fleet northward instead. If there were other fleets coming to rescue the soldiers, the metal diving combat vessels would lash out. It was a tactic that always worked like a charm.

The Alchemy City’s warships would definitely need to slow down to send out boats and rescue the soldiers in the water. It would be easier for the diving combat vessels to attack when their enemies were not moving.

The attack on Devil’s Horn was entering at all-time-high. Over 100 towers on the island were activated, forming a defensive circle.

They lost the port due to bombardment from enemy magic cannons, and three magic cannons were eventually destroyed. Regardless of how powerful the magic towers’ defenses were, they were not meant for resisting sustained attacks from the Ancient.

With three of the magic towers down, the remaining three lost offensive capacities. The Ancient’s entire fleet unleashed the boats right away, sending troops to shore.

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The docks were picked clean, and there were no enemy troops standing in their way. The Iron Blood Warriors brought the mages, puppets, and demons to Devil’s Horn.

The Grand Duke fielded his main force, sending powerful mages behind them. They began assembling large puppets as soon as they got onto shore. There were even magic chariots.

The magic chariots were bought from Saleen in large quantities, as Saleen bundled them with their schematics.

If the purchase volume was low, then Saleen would not sell the schematics. Imposa was there and given ample time, he would be able to replicate the magic chariots himself.

It was easier to craft them than to craft the magic power furnaces. Saleen gave the schematics for free with every 100 chariots sold. All of the magic chariots had been modified by Imposa.

There were rapid-fire alchemy crossbows on the magic chariots, making them capable of avoiding being surrounded. The chariots even had magic arrays capable of controlling puppets, allowing mages of lower levels to control the large scale puppets.

The large puppets were assembled on the broken docks. All of them were over 100 meters tall, capable of carrying magic cannons for attack. In actuality, Imposa created the large puppets just for speed and ease of control.

The large puppets had six legs and were capable of traversing very difficult terrain as if they were flying.

The Cloudflow army began attacking after the preparations were done. Devil’s Horn had complex and difficult terrain, but Saleen put the death mages to good use. After the Grand Duke’s army gained access to skeletal warhorses, terrain was no longer much of a problem.

They were concerned that some of the enemy that escaped to Alchemy City, so there were none of bug angel army in the assault of Devil’s Horn. All 14 of the level ten professionals were deployed.

Saleen did not even bother holding anything back. He took out the scrolls like he wanted to dispose of them, unraveling one after another and cast them.

The level ten sorcerers at the Grand Duke’s side looked on with gaping mouths. All of them deemed themselves fairly wealthy and the duke was very generous, but none of them dared fight like Saleen.

Saleen was clearing out stocks. He had no intention of keeping any of the scrolls that he brought out from Sreeger Island. All scrolls from Metatrin were made from starline paper. It would enable higher stability, greater power, and longer preservation periods.

Devil’s Horn never expected to be subjected to such ferocious attacks. All of the 14 level ten professionals were capable of overpowering a nine-floored magic tower individually.

None of the level nine professionals around Saleen were easy to deal with. Truman brought his elemental envoy, which enabled his offensive powers to almost equal level ten sorcerers.

Countless elemental spells were gathered and cast, and the entire Devil’s Horn seemed to have entered an elemental turbulence. It seemed to be about to rain. The already gloomy day appeared even colder.

Saleen had already killed at least four level 9 sorcerers with the Thunder Dragon Blaster. The level 9 sorcerers relied on the magic towers and showed their heads to attack, but they were quickly discovered by Saleen and killed.

All professionals below level 9 suffered the same consequences when they took on the lightning icicles without knowing their attributes. Trusting their usual judgments too much only ended with being killed by the power of lightning.

Grand Duke Iron Blood was very close to Saleen. His eyelids twitched as he watched Saleen cast his lightning icicles. It was no wonder that Saleen had no fear of getting near him.

He would not be able to defend against such attacks and very powerful equipment would be needed to fend them off. The speed of the icicles were simply too terrifying.

Saleen finally got to see the Grand Duke attack. He had a longbow and was equipped with a space quiver. Any one of the arrows he fired could fly for several miles. Grand Duke Iron Blood was definitely not an archer, but the power of the arrows was almost the same as level ten magic spells.

No level ten mage would be able to cast so many level ten spells. The Grand Duke’s longbow could easily be on par with Seven Nights.

Seeing Saleen having an eye on his weapon, the Grand Duke elaborated, “Your Highness, this is a godly item from the Dragon Island, which was crafted using the body of an ancient dragon. The bow was crafted with a 600 meter-long dragon. Even during those years, it was still quite a formidable equipment. It’s quite a pity that I’m not an archer.”

“Quite a cost for using this, eh?”

“Indeed. It requires dragon crystals, and the crystals used are incapable of recovering their power,” Grand Duke Iron Blood answered.

One whole ancient dragon just to make one bow! Saleen was incapable of doing such a thing. Every single inch of the dragon’s body was stronger than steel. Compressing all that material and crafting the end product would require a huge amount of time.

Even if Saleen used lightning, he would need no less than a dozen years to compress an ancient dragon to such a degree.

“I assume the bow is a sealing godly item.”

“It is indeed. I’m only able to cast level ten attacks. Enhancement of its offensive capacity would be capped at level 11, but the cost of doing so would be ten times greater. It is not really all that worthwhile.” the Grand Duke killed enemy mages as he elaborated to Saleen.

The speed at which his arrows were shot could not be compared to the projectiles fired by the Thunder Dragon Blaster. However, the Thunder Dragon Blaster was only capable of firing seven lightning icicles at once. It would need one hour to recharge.

The Grand Duke’s godly item could be fired continuously. Saleen was very envious.