Free Web NovelLouis woke up to a slight tremor, sat up from his bed, and walked to the porthole. He raised his hand to turn the shutter, and outside the thick circular window, the night had not yet fully faded.
The sea was so calm there were almost no ripples, save for the occasional flying fish leaping from the water, leaving a brief silver line on the surface before being swallowed by the darkness again.
This ship was sailing on a course away from the continental battlefield.
The campaign in the Holy Eastern Empire no longer required his personal presence.
He had completely handed over the frontline command to Lambert and Gray.
The former was responsible for order and taking over, while the latter handled the advance and mopping up; each had their own duties, with no overlap and no need for constant confirmation.
Louis remained here because there were more important matters waiting for him.
He withdrew his gaze, walked to the washstand, and splashed his face with cold water. His sleepiness quickly receded.
Louis looked up and waved his hand casually at the air.
A pale blue light screen expanded across his retina.
【Daily Intelligence Update Complete】
【1: The Red Tide First and Second Legions completed the encirclement of the Holy Eastern Empire's capital late last night.】
Louis only glanced at it: "As expected."
This piece of intelligence held almost no informational value for him.
The rhythm, advancement routes, and key nodes of the entire campaign were results he had personally deduced and then handed over to Gray to execute.
If a Red Tide regular army equipped with magma essence rifles, Steam Tanks, and Magic Bombs ran into trouble against a disorganized, poorly armed religious militia, it would only mean there was a problem with the command system itself.
He was actually more concerned about the efficiency of the subsequent takeover.
"Move faster, let fewer people die," Louis muttered softly to himself.
The text on the light screen continued to scroll.
【2: The former imperial units led by Kalian heavily damaged the Emerald Federation's invasion forces in the Battle of Sunset Canyon and launched a counter-offensive. Currently, the vanguard has entered the Gem Corridor within Federation territory.】
Louis's gaze paused, and he raised an eyebrow slightly.
When the Red Tide headed south with its target clearly set on the Holy Eastern Empire, that group of calculating merchant councilors in the Emerald Federation clearly thought this was a rare window of opportunity. They believed that with just one more push, they could swallow that land along with its resources.
But a starved camel is still bigger than a horse; they still underestimated Kalian too much.
Louis let out a soft breath: "Greed truly makes one's judgment lose focus."
He did not intend to feel any pity for the Federation's losses.
With both sides bleeding each other out over there, it gave the Red Tide enough time to deal with a more troublesome direction.
The light screen flickered slightly, and the next entry refreshed.
【3: The Emerald Federation's High Council passed a resolution by unanimous vote last night to initiate the Chimera Project, preparing to deploy Artificial Dragon experimental subjects in local theaters of war.】
Louis's breathing noticeably hitched: "Artificial... dragons?"
The word itself carried an anachronistic weight.
Dragons had disappeared from the continent's history over a millennium ago, leaving behind only the dragon remains of Greyrock and incomplete legends.
Was this so-called Artificial Dragon a deformed product of alchemical stitching, or had they excavated some ancient ruin?
Louis couldn't give an immediate answer, but a sense of crisis clearly surfaced.
Once such a strategic-grade unit was proven controllable, the existing balance of power would be directly shattered.
Whether the Red Tide's armored units possessed sufficient countermeasures still needed to be verified.
"To have avoided being annexed while under the Empire's shadow for a century, they certainly have a trump card."
Louis took a deep breath, temporarily pushing this problem to the back of his mind.
Battles must be fought one by one, and problems solved one by one.
He closed the intelligence interface, and the pale blue light screen dissipated.
Louis straightened the buttons on his collar and then pushed open the cabin door.
Outside the door, Weil stood like a statue on one side of the corridor.
The sea breeze poured in from the vents, fluttering his cloak, but it failed to move the hand he had resting on his sword hilt.
Seeing Louis come out, Weil immediately stood at attention and gave a standard, restrained knight's salute.
"Where are we, Weil?" Louis asked.
Weil stepped aside and raised his hand to point into the distance.
Looking out through the open cabin door, an unnatural golden halo appeared at the end of the horizon, like a boundary line forcibly wedged between the sky and the sea.
"Lord, the lookout tower has confirmed that it is their shield."
He paused for a moment and added: "The Golden Feather Cult Sovereignty is just ahead."
Louis walked to the railing, his hands resting on the cold metal edge.
He looked at the silhouette of the continent shrouded in the golden light screen. Despite being separated by the sea, he could already vaguely sense an aura that did not belong to the living slowly seeping out from behind that layer of light... Three massive steel warships deployed in a wedge formation, advancing steadily forward.
When the bows broke the waves, there was no excess spray; the crests were directly crushed, sliding down the sides of the armored hulls.
The flagship, the fernando, was at the very front, with the second ship, the Unyielding, and the third ship, the Thunder, flanking it to the left and right, maintaining a distance precise to the meter.
Behind them, thirty Hunter-class destroyers and supply ships deployed in sequence, forming several stable navigation lines. Radar and sonar worked continuously like an invisible net, firmly enveloping the entire fleet.
Not long after sighting the continent, the color of the seawater began to change.
Even Billy, a newly recruited sailor on a supply ship, noticed the problem. He leaned against the railing, watching the churning colors beneath the waves, unable to tell for a moment if it was a trick of the light or if his eyes were deceiving him.
"Look... is the sea turning red?" His voice was tight, and he subconsciously lowered it, yet his lack of confidence still leaked through.
At first, it was just a reddish tint at the edges, as if something was slowly being stirred in.
Then that red deepened rapidly, becoming turbid and thick, with a dull luster when the waves turned over.
A fishy, sweet scent began to mix into the air.
On the supply ship behind, the Adam's apple of the new sailor, Billy, bobbed: "This smell... isn't right, is it?"
A weather-beaten old sailor beside him spat and reached out to pull his cap lower: "What are you panicking for?"
The old sailor squinted, looking at the white flocculent matter gradually floating up on the sea surface, his tone actually sounding certain.
"Remember this, kid. If things were really going south, we'd have been ordered to turn around long ago. The fleet is still moving forward, which means this stuff..."
The old sailor grinned, revealing a mouthful of teeth yellowed by smoke: "...can't stop steel."
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, two abnormal feedbacks occurred.
Low, rapid warning tones traveled along the pipes, echoing repeatedly inside the ship's hull.
Those white floating objects were no longer scattered.
They began to slowly gather, their outlines gradually becoming clear.
Transparent umbrella-like bodies expanded underwater, each the size of a millstone, with highly concentrated acidic tissue encased beneath the membrane.
Tentacles trailed in the water, exceeding dozens of meters in length, like soft but deadly rigging, instinctively searching for targets to entwine.
It was a fusion of thorns and jellyfish. They didn't move °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° fast, but they were so dense it made one's heart tighten, like a minefield that was closing in.
Although Billy wasn't at the front of the battlefield, the densely packed monsters still made his legs turn to jelly... Inside the armored bridge of the fernando, Commander Alvin stood calmly at the command station. The area ahead was almost completely filled with monsters.
"Maintain course," his voice echoed throughout the ship via the speaking tubes. "No need for evasion."
The bridge fell silent for a brief moment, and then the order was executed perfectly.
The spray pipes on both sides of the warship activated simultaneously.
The metal valves emitted a low rumble as they opened, and a large amount of alchemical fuel was atomized under high pressure, spreading out against the exterior of the hull, followed immediately by ignition.
"Whoosh—"
The flames ignited instantly along the spray trajectory, and two hundred-meter-long walls of fire rose simultaneously beside the three warships.
Orange-red tongues of flame rolled against the steel hulls, illuminating the surrounding sea as bright as day.
The Thorn Jellyfish reacted the moment they touched the fire.
The transparent umbrella bodies contracted rapidly, the internal acid lost stability, and then they burst and evaporated.
Tentacles curled and carbonized in the high heat, snapping before they could even begin to entwine.
The three massive steel ships maintained their original cruising speed, passing right through the flames.
The walls of fire gradually died out behind the ships, leaving only a completely scorched path on the sea. The dark red seawater churned, but no living things surfaced anymore.
The mist ahead began to thin.
The field of vision opened up again, and a silhouette that did not belong to nature slowly appeared on the horizon.
It was a forest of white.
Hundreds of biological warships were spread quietly across the sea, not arranged neatly, yet carrying an uncomfortable sense of order.
Their hulls were not wooden but composed of deathly pale ossified structures, their surfaces covered with layers of eerie thorns that looked like faintly pulsating blood vessels.
The sails were not cloth either; massive white membranes were unfurled, shaped like the wings of a bat, pulled by several thick, dark-red thorns that served as masts fixed to the hull.
There were no sailors running on the deck; instead, there were rows of motionless figures.
Golden Feather Guards—their lower bodies had fused with the ship's deck, bone and wood growing together until the boundary was indistinguishable.
Their upper bodies remained humanoid, yet they were pale and stiff, like sculptures placed there intentionally.
The roots extending from their feet plunged directly into the mothership, drawing nutrients and commands from within.
As one Bone Ship slowly adjusted its course, the rest of the vessels reacted almost simultaneously.
Hundreds of biological warships turned at the same time, their movements so synchronized they seemed less like independent units and more like an extension of a shared consciousness.
They began to accelerate, like a pack of piranhas scenting blood, charging straight along the shortest route.
The destroyers at the front of the Red Tide fired their secondary guns first.
The shells sliced through the air, accurately hitting the prow of a Bone Ship.
The explosion tore open the ossified structure, sending fragments flying in all directions.
However, that ship did not slow down.
The broken parts began to squirm, and dark red thorns rapidly grew from the cracks in the bone, pulling the shattered structure together like sutures.
Within seconds, the hull was reassembled; though distorted in form, it was enough to continue sailing.
The Bone Ship returned to the formation as if nothing had happened.
Behind his binoculars, Louis quietly watched the entire process.
“The regeneration speed is decent.” He lowered the binoculars, his expression unchanged. “Tell Alvin to settle this as quickly as possible.”
...A Red Tide Knight hurried across the bridge and knelt on one knee: “Commander Alvin, a message from Lord Louis.”
Alvin withdrew his gaze from the sea.
The knight continued, “The Lord says there is no need for probing; settle this quickly, time is not on our side.”
Alvin nodded without asking further and lifted his hand from the railing.
“Hard to port.” The command traveled quickly through the speaking tube. “Speed, two knots.”
The steering gear let out a low, steady grinding sound as the three battleships began to turn almost simultaneously.
The massive hulls carved smooth arcs across the sea, waves being sliced layer by layer by the side armor before quickly closing up again.
The positioning was completed without any hesitation.
By the time the fleet finished turning, the broadsides of the three capital ships were fully exposed, aimed at the column of Bone Ships charging straight at them.
Heavy turrets locked on one by one, and the muzzle angles were rapidly corrected.
“All hands, load High-Explosive Incendiary Shells! Since they can regenerate, we'll burn them to ashes!”
The loading mechanism began to operate, heavy shells were fed into the breeches, and the locking sounds rang out in sequence, like a series of tightened steel joints.
The next second, the salvo began.
Twenty-seven main guns roared simultaneously. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
The massive recoil conducted through the hull, causing the steel beasts to shift laterally on the sea in a way visible to the naked eye; the deck vibrated slightly, and all fixed objects gave a short metallic echo.
“Boom—!!! Boom—!!!”
The air was torn apart, and the flames erupting from the muzzles almost lit up the entire sea.
The first High-Explosive Incendiary Shell fell into the center of the bone fleet.
The fireball expanded the moment it touched the sea, the shockwave spreading outward; waves within a three-hundred-meter radius were flattened and then evaporated into a rolling white mist by the high heat.
The so-called regenerative thorns couldn't even maintain their shape when they came into contact with the core blast zone.
The ossified hull was instantly torn apart, and the fused guards and spore launchers were swept into the flames together, skipping even the process of decomposition.
The green bodily fluids had barely splashed out before they quickly dried up and turned to ash in the high temperature.
The second and third rounds of salvos fell one after another.
The entire charge line was repeatedly covered.
When the smoke and flames slightly cleared, a massive gap had appeared in the once-dense bone fleet.
Only rolling debris and still-burning fragments remained on the sea, like a slaughterhouse that had been forcibly plowed over.
Dozens of exceptionally large bone flagship-class vessels still charged out from the edge of the blast zone.
Thick tentacles grew on their hulls, far exceeding ordinary ships in number; at the prow, several bone spikes wrapped in dark red veins protruded, carrying obvious corrosiveness.
They did not slow down; instead, they accelerated amidst the chaos like irrational beasts, crashing straight toward the broadside of Ship No. 2, the Unyielding.
Their intention was clear: board, tear open the steel plates, and pull the battlefield into melee range.
“Clang—!!!”
The sound of the collision was dull and piercing.
The prow of the Bone Ship suffered a crushing fracture the moment it contacted the steel.
The bone spikes snapped, bone shards flew everywhere, and the entire hull was bounced back by the reactionary force.
Only a shallow scratch was left on the hardened steel plates of the Unyielding, failing to even damage the structural layers.
The hull did not slow down; the Unyielding maintained its course, and its massive steel body crushed right over.
The spinning propellers kicked up a violent vortex underwater, dragging the Bone Ship along with the deformed creatures on its deck beneath the hull.
Bones, tentacles, and still-struggling bodies were ground up, turning into a rapidly spreading mixture of red and white.
The battleship continued forward.
Just then, an abnormal vibration occurred in the hull; inside the engine room of the Thunder, an alarm suddenly blared.
“RPM dropping!”
The chief engineer's voice came through the intercom, sounding clearly urgent.
“The propeller is jammed!”
The sea surged.
Several massive shadows emerged from underwater, bringing up large sprays of water.
They were deep-sea giant octopuses parasitized by thorns.
Their size was comparable to small islands, their grayish-white skin covered in barbs, and their tentacles reached out from the water, tightly gripping the bottom of the battleship.
The strong acid secreted by the suckers caused white smoke to rise from the armor surface, corroding the anti-rust coating.
The immense force began to drag it downward.
The corner of Alvin's mouth curled slightly: “Do they think they're hugging a wooden ship? Trying to drag us down? Their strength isn't enough.”
He raised his hand and ordered: “All ships, attention: deploy Deep-Sea Shock Bombs, detonate!”
The moment the command was given, the outer destroyers quickly moved forward. freēwebnovel.com
Rows of depth charges were released, sinking into the water and leaving a trail of short, rapid bubble tracks.
A few seconds later, a dull vibration came from underwater.
It wasn't the roar of an explosion, but a muffled thud compressed by the water layers.
“Thump—thump—thump—”
The sound waves propagated along the seabed, overlapping continuously like a steady drumbeat.
The deep-sea giant octopuses beneath the sea suddenly stiffened; their exteriors remained intact, and their skin was not even broken.
But their internal organs, nerves, and centers were simultaneously turned into structureless mush by the pressure of the shockwaves.
The massive corpses slowly floated to the surface, their suckers opening and closing, but no longer able to exert force.
Green bodily fluids continuously seeped from the ruptured parts, quickly spreading in the dark red seawater.
The vibrations of the Thunder gradually subsided, and the propellers regained their speed.
But the sea surface was not completely quiet.
Scattered bone vessels still floated outside the burning zone, some with hulls blown apart yet dragging themselves forward using remaining roots.
There were also sea monsters that were not yet completely dead rolling in the seawater, their tentacles twitching as they tried to approach the fleet again.
Alvin did not stop giving orders: “Continue with the Magic Bombs.”
The brief four words spread to all ships through the speaking tubes.
The secondary gun bays moved quickly; those Alchemical Shells specifically used for clearing abnormal targets were sent to the gun positions, the runes on the shell surfaces lighting up in sequence during the loading process and then extinguishing the moment locking was completed.
The destroyers fired first.
Several Magic Bombs skimmed across the sea on low-flat trajectories, landing among the remaining Bone Ships.
Magic power was forcibly detonated at the impact points, forming brief and violent vacuum zones, followed by the delayed shock.
The remaining bone hulls were torn apart in silence, the thorn roots seemingly yanked out from within; the entire structure instantly lost support, collapsing, shattering, and sinking beneath the water.
Several sea monsters still struggling were caught in the blast.
Their shells were not burned, but they showed obvious imbalance in the next second.
Nerve signals were disrupted by the magic power, their tentacles stiffened, and their movements completely lost coordination.
Immediately after, a second round of Magic Bombs covered the area.
This time, the target was closer.
The explosions occurred underwater, the impact amplified by the seawater.
Those creatures that had not yet died were directly torn apart, disintegrating from within without even a chance to roll over.
Minutes later, only scattered wreckage remained on the sea.
No regeneration, no repair.
Everything that could still move had been cleared out.
Alvin straightened his military cap, his gaze sweeping over the wreckage floating on the sea.
“Clear the propellers, full speed ahead.”
After a brief pause, he added: “Report to Lord Louis that the gates have been kicked open.”
