aircannonsinc Chapter 1086 Far-Sea Strike
Chapter 1086 Far-Sea Strike
"Fall back."
Edmund stood by the porthole on the bridge, his voice calm, "Notify all ships that repairs and resupply will be carried out tonight, and the second round of testing will take place tomorrow morning—a tactical simulation against an attack by a simulated void creature fleet."
"Yes, Commander."
The fleet's formation began to change, transitioning from a training posture to a cruising formation, and it slowly adjusted its course, preparing to return to the pre-designated anchorage.
Edmund did not leave the porthole. He gazed at the darkening sky over the setting sun, at the lingering reflections of the sunset on the water, and at the tiny clouds that were about to disappear below the horizon.
Adjutant Eileen walked to his side, paused for a moment, and then spoke: "Commander, today's test data is excellent. At this rate, after two more rounds of live-fire exercises and one joint exercise with the land defense line, this fleet should be able to achieve full combat capability."
Edmund nodded slowly: "That's right. But—"
He paused, his gaze growing even more profound: "These warships are ultimately just tools. What truly matters is whether the people who operate them are prepared to face those things."
Eileen remained silent.
Anyone who has seen the vision of the Void Invasion will never forget the suffocating terror it evokes.
Those living nebula-like void creatures in the starry sky swarmed out from the rifts, devouring everything tangible... They were not "enemies" in the conventional sense, but a pure instinctive devouring.
Even though the people on the ship had already seen the void creatures and the void rift surrounded in the center.
But it's different on the sea than on land.
As predicted, at that time, the void creatures would actually experience waves crashing onto the sea like tsunamis, creating a psychological pressure on a completely different level.
“Commander,” Eileen finally spoke, “wasn’t our year of training all about preparing to face it?”
"There are also the global defense lines, the anchor devices on the ice fields, the mobilization of various continents... We are no longer standing in the face of the apocalypse in complete ignorance."
Edmund turned his head, glanced at her, and a complicated look flashed in his eyes: "You're right. We're ready, but the year since the World Alliance was established... has been too fast for me."
He reached out and gently tapped the metal frame of the porthole: "A year ago, I thought I would spend the rest of my life peacefully at sea, occasionally chasing pirates, drinking, and basking in the sun."
"And now? I've suddenly become the commander of the strongest fleet in the entire world of Aegira, leading a group of soldiers to face the apocalypse. The word 'fast' is no longer enough to describe this feeling."
Eileen paused for a moment, then chuckled softly: "Commander, to be honest... I thought you were the kind of cold-blooded commander who believed 'everything is expected'."
“Cold-blooded?” Edmund scoffed. “My blood has always been warm. It’s the seawater that’s cold.”
Upon hearing this, many of the staff on the bridge smiled in unison.
"Alright, time to go home." Edmund clapped his hands. "I'll treat you to drinks tonight, on the condition that you perform well in the real battle in a few days—otherwise, the penalty will be doubled."
"What if it's a problem of teamwork failure?" a young technical officer asked, mustering his courage.
"Hehe, you wouldn't want to know..."
A hearty laugh rang out from inside the bridge.
As the sun completely sank below the horizon, the lights of sixteen warships illuminated the night, like stars floating on the sea.
The World League flag, hanging high on the mast, still fluttered in the night wind.
In the distance, a Night's Watch logistics supply fleet is rendezvousing with the main fleet, bringing training supplies for the next phase.
Void creature attraction nodes, new maintenance parts, and the latest version of the energy rune chip from Poppot Technologies.
……
A few days later, this steel fleet, which embodies the efforts of the World Alliance and the cutting-edge technology of the Night Watchers, arrived at its designated target area—the depths of the Sunset Sea.
A deadly body of water stained with an ominous pale purple.
Without the need for the precise scanning of the "All-Area Eye," the anomalies of this place can be sensed with the naked eye alone.
The color of the seawater was no longer the dreamy deep purple reflected by the afterglow of the sunset, but a murky, viscous pale purple, as if it had been polluted by invisible ink.
Sunlight pierced through the sea, illuminating the area and making it resemble a huge and eerie amethyst coffin.
A faint, low hum filled the air, not the howling sea breeze, but more like some kind of unsettling collective murmur from the abyss.
This is clear evidence of the dissipation of void energy and the presence of a large number of void creatures.
"Commander, we have arrived at the designated coordinates, approximately 15 nautical miles from the core of the contamination zone."
Eileen Tide Song's voice rang out in the bridge, carrying the unique coolness of an elf, yet unable to conceal a hint of tension.
On the holographic projection platform, the blue dots representing the fleet's position overlapped with the edges of the preset red target area.
Inside the deep red area marked "high risk," countless red dots, like a swarm of boiling ants, were flashing and wriggling wildly. Their density was so high that it almost dyed the entire projection area scarlet.
That was a terrifying legion born from an unsealed void rift two hundred meters below the sea surface.
As the Alliance leadership recognized—the ocean, this deep, vast, and three-dimensional battlefield, is the most difficult path in the void to defend completely.
On the bridge of the flagship "Omniscient Eye", Edmund Iron Anchor rested his hands on the edge of the holographic platform, his deep blue eyes sharp as a hawk's, staring intently at the boiling red sea.
After more than a year of training and drills, the fleet's data was perfect, but cold numbers can never replace the test of blood and fire.
Today is the moment when this newly honed blade will strike for the first time against a true enemy in the void.
"Order all ships," Edmund's steady, powerful voice pierced the oppressive silence of the bridge, "'Anvil' defensive formation deployed. Cruiser group, advance to second attack position; destroyer group, expand your perimeter. Target—the edge of the contaminated core area."
"Yes, Commander. Deploy the 'Anvil' formation."
Eileen swiftly translated the orders into a clear command stream, which was instantly transmitted to every warship via the fleet communication network.
On the sea, the torrent of steel began to operate in an orderly manner.
Four massive "Sinful Skyfire-class" battleships reduced their speed, forming a diamond-shaped encirclement around the central flagship, "Eye of the Globe."
Runes on the hulls of the two "Wall of Light" class frigates lit up, and pale blue energy shields spread rapidly like ripples, enveloping the core fleet.
With engines roaring, the six Striker-class cruisers surged forward like arrows, forming a wider arc of firepower around the core shield.
The four Ranger-class destroyers, like the most agile fish, darted around the perimeter of the fleet at high speed, their onboard detection arrays operating at full power, vigilantly scanning for any unusual fluctuations.
"Attract nodes, prepare to project."
Edmund's gaze was fixed on the core of the crimson area in the projection.
"Attraction node projection is ready."
At the top of the bridge of the "Eye of the Whole Realm," a complex multi-dimensional magic array instantly lit up, with layers of spatial runes and alchemical circuits intertwining and reflecting each other.
At the center of the magic circle, a seemingly inconspicuous square alchemical structure was enveloped, compressed, and poised to be unleashed by an invisible force.
With Edmund's resolute "Launch!"
The magic array shone brightly, and the construct was shot out like a giant crossbow bolt, transforming into a streak of light that precisely traversed a distance of more than ten nautical miles before crashing into the sea above the preset coordinates.
Splash!
The structure did not sink, but unfolded and deformed the moment it came into contact with the seawater.
The metal components stretched and combined as if they were alive, and in the blink of an eye, they transformed into a giant metal column that was tens of meters high.
A complex floating structure extends from the bottom of the column, which floats steadily above the waves, remaining steadfast despite the surging waves.
On the surface of the pillar, the array of emerald green runes, identical to those used during the Icefield Defense Line test, began to flicker.
"start up."
Edmund's command was like the starting gun for the end times.
hum--.
The deep, penetrating roar ignored the obstruction of the seawater and erupted with a thunderous roar centered on the column.
Countless soft, orderly, and vibrant emerald rays of light burst forth from every crevice of the pillar, instantly illuminating the murky purple sea. The effect was immediate, even more stunning than the test on the ice plains.
On the holographic projection, the boiling crimson color instantly froze.
Immediately afterwards, as if forcibly reversed by an invisible giant hand, all the red dots turned towards the green beam of light on the sea surface that exuded a "deadly allure".
The deathly silence lasted only a moment before being replaced by an even more violent and chaotic cacophony of thoughts.
Rumble—
The entire sea surface was like a pot of oil that had been filled with tons of explosives, boiling over completely.
The seawater, which was originally just a pale purple, deepened and became murky at a visible speed, turning in the blink of an eye into a nauseating, viscous, deep purple pool.
Countless distorted, fused-with-marine-like void monsters broke through the water's surface.
Some of them have the sharp teeth of a shark and the tentacles of an octopus, and are covered with a purplish-black crystalline shell;
Some resembled deformed sea anemones magnified a thousand times, waving their limbs covered in suckers and dripping with corrosive mucus.
Some retain the massive skeletal outline of whales, but the flesh has long been replaced by writhing purplish-black energy and proliferating bone spurs...
They piled up one on top of another, squeezing, tearing, and trampling each other, emitting chilling shrieks and roars, forming a destructive purplish-black wave that madly rushed toward the lone emerald pillar of light on the sea surface.
Their sheer number and density almost completely covered the surface of the target sea area, as if a terrifying continent made up of living monsters, constantly writhing, was rising from the deep sea.
"Fire." Edmund's voice was as cold as iron, without the slightest hesitation.
The four "Sinful Skyfire-class" battleships, which had been poised to strike, were the first to unleash their power.
The massive alchemical turrets on the ship adjusted their angles, and complex magic arrays rapidly rotated and superimposed in front of the cannon muzzles.
This time, it wasn't a destructive energy beam; it was a field control effect.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Four ice-blue magical orbs, each over five meters in diameter and radiating an aura of extreme cold, were suddenly shot out.
They streaked across the sky, leaving long trails of frost, and flew precisely to the top of the boiling monster tide before exploding with a deafening roar.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, only an extreme cold wave that instantly spread.
At the epicenter of the explosion, the air crackled and froze under the strain, and large swaths of white ice mist swept outwards like a tsunami.
Instead of dissipating, the ice fog rapidly condensed and swirled in the high sky, forming a huge ice-blue cumulonimbus cloud covering several square kilometers.
The clouds hung low, with cold currents surging within, shimmering with a dangerous, icy light.
The next second, the ice cloud roared.
Countless thick, extremely sharp ice crystal spikes, like a rain of javelins thrown by the gods, poured down from the clouds with destructive density.
They tore through the air with a sharp, piercing sound as they plunged into the densely packed horde of monsters below.
*Pfft! Pfft! Snap!*
The dense sounds of penetration, shells shattering, and flesh freezing mingled together to create a symphony of hell.
The monsters that were directly hit were instantly pierced and frozen, but what was even more terrifying was what followed—the ice spikes that had been deeply embedded in the monsters' bodies or the sea surface would suddenly burst open a second time after reaching their limit.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each ice spike transformed into a rapidly expanding, deadly ice storm composed of countless tiny ice crystals.
These rapidly spinning, knife-edged ice crystals sprayed and cut wildly in all directions like a meat grinder.
Within its range, everything—whether it was a hard carapace, tough tentacles, or writhing flesh—was instantly shredded into pieces, turning into a sky full of filthy ice shards mixed with purple slime and ice fragments.
Just one volley.
The void creatures above the sea surface and in the shallow waters of the central area of the target sea area have been completely cleared.
The view became clear.
In the center of the once boiling, purplish-black "continent," a huge "cavity" filled with icy blue shards of ice and monster remains was forcibly carved out.
The biting cold even froze parts of the sea, but was then torn apart by the surging monsters and the impact of explosions.
A cloud of icy mist, a mixture of blood, putrid stench, and extreme cold, spread outwards like a polar storm, sending a chill through the bones of the fleet that was more than ten nautical miles away.
The temperature of the entire sea area plummeted, as if it had instantly plunged from the temperate zone into the frigid winter of an ice field.
However, the abyssal rift beneath the sea, which bred the monster, remained open.
The brief "void" seemed to enrage the entire Purple Abyss, and more and larger shadows surged wildly from the deep purple seawater.
The newly arrived monsters were instantly covered in a thick layer of white frost, and their movements became stiff and sluggish.
But the raging purple flames burning within them did not diminish in the slightest. They trampled over the corpses of their own kind, crushed the frozen ice, and still recklessly rushed toward the nodal beam of light that exuded a deadly allure.
"Second wave. Switch attack attribute - Thunderstorm."
Edmund's commands never faltered, and the rhythm of the battle was as precise as a machine.
The lightning runes on the hulls of the six "Striker-class" cruisers, which were already prepared, suddenly lit up.
Thick arcs of electricity leaped and converged on the surface of the ship, eventually coalescing into a blinding ball of lightning at the main gun muzzle at the bow.
Sizzle—boom.
Six thick, blindingly white beams of lightning tore through the space shrouded in icy mist and pierced into the icy blue cumulonimbus cloud that was still sending down ice spikes.
It's like pouring cold water into boiling oil.
The icy blue clouds were instantly tainted by the violent lightning energy, and the churning cold currents inside collided and merged violently with the lightning.
The icy blue was visibly tinged with a deep blue-black, the clouds churned and expanded violently, lightning flashed and thunder roared from within, producing a dull and terrifying rumble.
Thick bolts of lightning darted wildly across the surface of the clouds, gathering destructive power.
"Divine punishment, descend."
Eileen murmured softly, her eyes reflecting the apocalyptic thunderclouds.
Boom!
The energy that had been building up to its peak finally erupted. It was no longer ice spikes, but a celestial pull of ten thousand thunderbolts.
Countless terrifying bolts of lightning, as thick as buckets and stretching from the sky to the sea, fell wildly from the rolling thunderclouds like giant whips wielded by an angry god.
The target was the sea below, which was once again filled with monsters.
These lightning bolts were not isolated; they attracted and intertwined with each other in the air, instantly forming a huge electric grid covering the entire target area.
The entire sea area was completely engulfed by the blinding white light, transforming into a true inferno of lightning.
"Ow—!"
The agonizing screams were drowned out by the deafening thunder.
The monster struck directly by the lightning instantly carbonized and vaporized.
In the areas swept by the electric grid, monsters twitched, stiffened, and turned charred and smoking in large numbers.
The seawater was electrolyzed, producing a pungent white mist that was instantly evaporated by the high temperature of the lightning.
The violent electric currents surged through the seawater, scorching even the monsters that tried to hide in the deep water.
Ice shards, coke, rising water vapor, and violent lightning intertwined to create a destructive and chaotic scene.
The battleships' frost control and the cruisers' thunderous destruction complemented each other perfectly.
Two rounds of attacks once again forcefully suppressed the surging monster tide. (End of Chapter)