Free Web NovelChapter 818: Chapter 446: The Fleet’s Glory (Part 2)
Not even a decent formation.
This isn’t a charge, it clearly looks like a rush to die.
Cole leisurely drew his command sword, lightly tapping the tip on the sea chart table, "Don’t let filthy things get close."
His tone was like ordering the sailors to scrub the deck, "Free fire, send them off."
"Boom——!"
Immediately followed by the second shot, the third shot...
The twelve vanguard ships acted like a cold execution squad, with their side cannons firing one by one.
The sound was rhythmic, bang, bang, bang, with a mechanical sense of rhythm.
The high-explosive bullets carved orange-red arcs through the mist, diving into that pile of rotten wood.
There were no tentative exchanges.
A cannonball plunged into the hold of a pirate ship, and after a muffled explosion, the entire ship burst from the inside like a blown-up balloon. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
Broken masts with burning sails flew into the air, and when they fell, they crushed a group of still-laughing fishmen, turning them instantly into a rain of shredded meat and wood splinters.
Cole watched this scene, his face showing no sign of disturbance.
So-called courage is worthless in front of the industrially manufactured explosives.
"Truly miserable." he muttered softly, but there was no trace of pity in his eyes. "These days, you can’t win just by shouting."
At that moment, several abnormally fast, narrow fast boats darted out from the dead corner of the smoke.
They skimmed across the sea surface, their tattered sails stretched almost to the point of tearing by wind magic.
Just a few hundred meters, and they’d be there in the blink of an eye.
Grappling combat.
This was the pirates’ only chance for a comeback, and it’s the trick they excelled at.
A dozen scaly abominations had already rushed to the bow, their hook ropes with barbs howling like banshees.
The grappling hooks clanged against the hull of the Red Flame, making an ear-piercing metallic scraping noise.
But that’s all it was, as those hooks couldn’t grip the smooth steel armor, with most slipping off directly and falling into the sea.
A few that barely caught the railing were snapped before anyone could climb up.
No one in the command tower panicked.
Cole frowned, his expression akin to seeing a few cockroaches scuttling across his dining table at home.
"Too filthy." He sheathed his command sword, "Open the valves. Burn it clean."
The boatswain pulled down several red levers without a trace of emotion.
"Sss——!"
The hidden nozzles below the hull opened instantly.
Out came not water, but a thick, dark red, gelatinous substance.
It was the Alchemy Workshop’s special fuel, raining down like a downpour on those fast boats and the pirates ready to climb up.
No time for them to react.
The igniter lit up.
"Whoosh——!!!"
A wall of fire suddenly rose.
The wood soaked in oil began to char instantly, their structures making a tooth-aching cracking sound.
As for those abominations, they were burned to black cinders without even having time to scream, maintaining their menacing postures as they rolled into the sea.
The sea boiled for a while, releasing large clouds of white steam, before quickly swallowing the remains.
Cole straightened his collar and refocused his gaze forward, "I said, don’t let filthy things touch Lord Louis’ ship."
He ordered into the voice tube: "Maintain speed. Crush them."
The Red Tide’s vanguard fleet didn’t pause, nor did they perform any unnecessary maneuvers.
One by one, the steel warships formed a neat wedge formation, with boiler pressures at the red line, massive propellers churning the sea into a frothy mess.
They advanced through the gun smoke, crushing the wooden debris and bodies on the sea surface like a bulldozer.
In front of this moving iron wall, the pitiful remnants of the old era didn’t even qualify as stumbling blocks.
......
On that now blurred sea, the Scorpion, like a wild dog with a broken spine, was desperately crawling toward the open sea.
Miller stood on the aft deck, his hand-held monocular shaking uncontrollably.
Even from this distance, the sound of bones grinding seemed to crawl into his ears.
In his view, the situation should have been one-sided.
Nearly a hundred pirate ships in total.
Even pieced together from rotten wood, densely scattered across the sea, they appeared as an unyielding wall.
Moreover, those ships were crawling with those undying abominations, incapable of feeling pain and possessing immense strength, the most terrifying nightmare Miller had ever seen.
And across from them were only thirteen ships, with the largest one even trailing behind.
With numbers of one hundred to twelve, this should have been an ant swarm engulfing an elephant into a tragedy.
"Huh?" Miller let out a distorted cry.
No clashes, no grappling, not even a slowdown.
Those twelve steel warships, spewing black smoke, sliced through the rotting butter like twelve red-hot dinner knives.
"Boom——!"
In the view of the monocular, wood fragments exploded like a fountain.
The leading pirate ships were directly shattered into pieces.
Those deep-sea monstrosities, impervious to blades and bullets in Miller’s eyes, were fragile as paper toys before thousands of tons of steel momentum.
They tried to hook the deck with ropes, tried to block with their bodies.
But the iron ship didn’t even flinch.
It just rolled straight through.
The prow’s ram split the keel, the steel hull crushed the ship’s structure, and at the stern... Miller witnessed the most terrifying scene.
The sea turned dark red.
The propellers churned at high speed underwater, turning all the wood, ropes, and the flesh of those creatures into a thick stew of gore.
