Chapter 544: Defeat

Some people were not smart, but when an intuition flashed, they can be so acutely sharp that it was hard to believe.

When the Atlantean fleet commander saw how Wizard Li’s biochemical warship killed his sergeants, he immediately made a judgment close to the truth. However, his words were not agreed upon by the chief staff officer of the fleet.

“Essengug, the first batch of explorer to the World 30009 was led by Sergeant Someril. I think you should have heard of this name before. Although Madam Someril is a woman, with her ability, there may be some slight things she had overlooked, but she’ll definitely not miss a biological civilization that can build an aviation warship. I think it should be the gods in the foreign world that are causing these troubles. These giant beasts are god’s creations,” Karim’s expression was sullen when he shook his head in contemplation.

“But according to the exploration report, the gods in the World 30009 have fallen into an eternal slumber. Otherwise, the danger level here would not have remained in the third sequence,” Essengug retorted.

“A supernatural creature is not something that we can predict based on logic. It’s not like the dead gods here could never awaken…” Karim still insisted on sticking to his point of view, but when he saw that the monster-like fleet in the distance was getting closer to them, he spoke in a deep voice, “Alright, it’s not the time to argue about the origins of the enemy now, my commander. We must decide whether to engage or to retreat!”

“Do we even need to choose, Karim? If the entire fleet retreated without engaging just because of the loss of two patrolling teams, I believe that I’d be nicknamed as the ‘most incompetent commander’ in Atlantis once I returned to the base. Not only that, but I might be exiled to the starry sky too…”

“Another possibility is that you have wisely chosen to retreat under insufficient strength and return precious information and get promoted because you have discovered an unknown enemy.”

“I don’t care about such promotions at all! I’m not like you, my dear friend! I’m a commander, not a civilian officer. I may not be a hero, but I can’t be a coward who escapes! Of course, what you said is right as well! The information we harvest this time is also essential, or why don’t you…” The fleet commander looked at the strong enemy on the 3D diagram and had a strange expression on his face.

“Since you’ve decided to engage in a battle, allow Adjutant Azola to bring the information back to the base then,” Karim interrupted his friend and raised his voice as he said, “General Affair Officer, prepare an escape pod and set the route directly to New York’s base.”

According to Atlantis’ military system, the chief staff officer had the authority to be second only to the commander on the battlefield. For this reason, upon hearing Karim’s order, with no objection raised by Essengug, a short red-haired young man who was standing in the corner of the flagship steering cabin began to tap the light buttons in front of him. Full of envy, he proceeded to set the route of the escape pod based on the order.

At this time, the adjutant who stood not far away from the fleet commander was flushed with emotions as he raised his objection, “Sir Karim, as the adjutant of Commander Essengug, one of my duties is to remain on the battlefield to…”

“A military’s vocation is not to obey orders. I don’t have time to argue with you, Adjutant Azola. Now, as the chief staff officer of the fleet, I order you to go to the escape pod to wait for my next order immediately!” Karim took a resolute and effective method immediately.

“Yes, sir!” Veins could be seen popping up on Azola’s forehead. However, after saluting without hesitation, he strode away from the command room.

Watching his disappearing back, Karim smiled and spoke casually, “What a good boy.”

“I personally chose him among 1,300 graduates from Nikolay Military Academy.” Essengug smiled. “Alright, Karim, since you still can’t leave just like last time, let us fight together to save our lives.”

“It’s all because of your bad luck, you know! To think that we can actually come across a battle of life and death while colonizing a primitive island,” Karim sighed and ordered loudly, “I order the fleet to enter a state of war! Battleship, cruise to the right along the enemy’s axis!”

“Flagship main artillery, begin to accumulate energy! Frigate, rotate to a 30-degree angle, and launch a fire attack on target 01!” Essengug added as he circled his finger at the 3D diagram, listing a giant beast at the frontmost of the enemy array as the primary target of attack. The biochemical battleship that was being circled was none other than the ‘Ancient One.’

Upon receiving the order, the three Atlantis shuttle-shaped warships, of two smalls and one big, slowly started to move and glide to the right quietly.

At the same time, the bow of the largest flagship began to peel open like petals, revealing a large cylindrical transparent crystal with a length of over 100 meters and a diameter of over ten meters.

When the clear crystal appeared, the light in the vicinity of several hundreds of meters before the battleship began to distort. As though it absorbed all light energy, a precursor of space collapsing began to show as if a black hole was about to appear.

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Even without the information gathered by the tentacles, the Wizard Li warriors controlling ancient giant weapons could sense such an apparent situation through the contact they had with the nerve connections in the biochemical warship. Soon, all of the spots on the five giant beasts at the frontmost of the formation sunk in to form a large mouthpiece that launched rays of different colors that sliced through the sky. Batch by batch, they began to launch overlay attacks along the orbit of the Atlantis battleships.

The dazzling white laser and the dazzling flame drew a long line in the sky before landing on the surface of the Atlantis battleships but disappeared without a trace after only causing ripples to the halo surrounding the battleships. It seemed like they did not cause any injuries at all.

However, the thick, green, intense acid rays and the frozen rays were utterly different. The coldness created hails in the air. The frozen rays that fell into the jungle managed to extinguish part of the halo surrounding the spaceship when it hit the Atlantis battleship, creating areas of cold white spots that immediately shattered when they were impacted.

When the active acid ray came into contact with the shell of the battleship, it immediately spread out and emitted a pungent, sour smell from the smoke, directly creating irregular holes on the spaceship. If it was not for the fact that the Atlantis warships were covered with two layers of armor, the entire fleet would have been wiped out by now.

“The armor of the warship brake system, 02 living areas, energy storage area, have all been completely damaged. The armor of the 01 living areas, entertainment area, has been 90% damaged…” Not long after the two sides exchanged fire, the steering cabin in the Atlantis flagship had already started to be blinded with blinking red light as the alarm resonated endlessly.

“It looks like the enemy’s firepower is far above our predictions, Karim.” The fleet commander looked at the self-examination diagram of the battleship covered with pits all over its outer shell in the 3D image in front and clenched his fists with a grave expression before asking loudly, “Has the main artillery not fully charged yet?”

“There is 9% more to go, sir!” The sergeant who was specializing in controlling the flagship’s main artillery was staring at the red and white line representing the charging intensity as he replied dryly.

When the main artillery was being charged, the flagship could not run at high speed. It could only rely on two frigates to fire and attract firepower. Adding to the fact that they had made a late judgment in opening fire against the enemy, the Atlantis fleet had suffered significant damage.

For this reason, at this moment, every Atlanteans were waiting for the main artillery to charge fully. Even if death was inevitable in the end, they could at least die with honor by pulling the enemy beasts to perish together with them.

In such a critical moment, time seemed to be more stagnant. When sweats the size of beans dripped down from the handsome face of the chief artillery sergeant, which rarely happened, the charging line that was slower than snail finally completed its journey.

“Commander! The main artillery is ready!” Without wasting even a second, the sergeant shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Excellent, sergeant! Fire target 01 with a single-shot!” Essengug replied with an even hoarser and louder voice.

“Yes, sir!” The chief artillery sergeant, who had already locked on the target, roared and slammed into the launch button. In an instant, the flagship bow, that had already wholly integrated with the sun, retracted its cylindrical crystal light beam that shattered all rays that it touched into nothingness before suddenly spurting out a gust of thick flame-like raging burning ray.

The ray with a speed of light sliced across the sky at a rate of a thunderbolt, directly piercing through the tough leather shell of the ‘Ancient One’ till it burst open, causing the entire biochemical warship to expand at a rapid speed.

Zhang Lisheng, who was initially staying in the crystal room while watching the wretched manner of the Atlantean fleet with interest, could only feel a flash across his eyes before his body was surrounded by a scorching heat.

As the severe pain of his body tore open, the young man who was caught off guard roared in rage as he gathered his divine power.

At that instant, several hundreds of totem poles in the islands that belonged to the Wizard Li tribe began to emit red, yellow, and blue brilliance. At the same time, tempestuous waves started to surge on the sea surface as calm as a mirror in the coastal of the Wizard Li Island in the distance without warning.

The waves mixed with countless sand, as it roared and charged towards the ‘Ancient One’ that had been expanded into its limit.

After being washed by the muddy seawater, the devastating damage caused by the Atlantis flagship main artillery soon disappeared without a trace. When the waves crashed back onto the ground with a loud crash, the giant biochemical weapons that should have exploded into pieces remained intact as it continued to hover in the air.

“It has never dodged the main artillery’s attack, and it has already shown detonation reaction too, so how is this possible? How could it not be damaged at all? The tsunami, the tsunami… It’s that tsunami!” In the Atlantean flagship’s steering cabin, Essengug, who was overwhelmed by his excitement that caused him to grit his teeth tightly just a few seconds ago, stared at the enemy beast, that had swollen up just now, in the 3D diagram and muttered with a grave expression.

“Let us not worry about this first. If we don’t retreat now, it’d no longer be an adventure but a dead-end, Essengug!” Karim, who was equally astonished, relaxed first before ordering in a hoarse voice, “Notify all frigates to fly in circles to avoid from being attacked! The fleet will return to New York base immediately!”

On the battlefield, heroism and stupidity were sometimes very similar. However, a wise person could always distinguish the difference between the two. Now that the hull had suffered from such damage, and that there were no destructive effects on the enemy despite the successful firing of the main artillery, the fleet would only be sacrificed in vain if they continued to engage in the battle. Withdrawing at such a time would not damage their reputation.