Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The sea had returned to calm, with the waves sweeping away planks and severed limbs, leaving hardly a trace of the fierce battle that had raged just the night before outside Lighthouse Harbor.

Only on the sandy beaches along the port, the charred keels of two fire ships were still smoking.

"...in the name of God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit, we commit their bodies to the deep, waiting for the sea to resurrect them in death, to enjoy eternal peace and tranquility in heaven,"

aboard The Glorious, Centurion Nalesho was giving the final eulogy.

After a brief memorial service, the bodies of the sailors were sent into the sea from a plank covered with the military flag.

Such was life on board, where everything was frugal and rudimentary, and the rituals and moral concepts of land didn't apply.

Without coffins or graveyards, the fallen sailors were sealed in burlap sacks filled with stones, then "delivered" to the sea. The living had to be busy with living, continuing their struggle on the harsh and perilous seas.

At this moment, Winters was outside Lighthouse Harbor City leading the remaining soldiers of the hundred-man squad in digging graves.

Antonio, who had always given way, refused to budge at the funeral and would not accept the time-saving and more efficient sea burial, insisting on burying the bodies of the Third Legion's fallen soldiers on land.

Army men weren't sailors; sailors were used to all this and could calmly accept the sea as their final resting place. But Antonio couldn't and wouldn't tolerate anyone throwing his soldiers into the sea to feed the fish.

After the death of Captain Wilson, Winters temporarily took over as the centurion of the hundred-man squad.

The position of centurion could only be held by a formal officer, so Winters was only standing in until the army headquarters sent a new official to replace him.

Although as the beneficiary of the situation it was difficult for Winters to voice criticism, he still perceived a severe flaw in the current military officer system—the lack of redundancy.

In a hundred-man squad with only one officer, the entire squad would lose organization if that officer fell, and the man taking over had to wait for a replacement from the army headquarters, making the entire command system delicate and fragile like an egg carving.

However, considering himself just a lowly warrant officer, Winters thought it was better to let those above worry about these matters; he just wanted to quickly finish digging these dirt pits.

A mere tens of hours prior in the sea battle, the Vineta Navy had had the last laugh.

After The Glorious engaged with Revenge, the other naval warships following The Glorious did not come to aid the flagship.

The captains made a cool judgment that there were more pressing places for them on the battlefield, and they could only trust that The Glorious would triumph over Revenge in their duel.

As the Vineta main fleet broke through the fire ships, the oar-sail warships were trapped in a tough fight.

Being outnumbered, when a Vineta oar-sail ship laid its boarding ramp onto a Tannilian warship, one or more other Tannilian warships would fire their cannons at her.

This resulted in the oar-sail ships not only having to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Tanyria warships directly ahead but also suffering cannon fire from behind.

The arrival of the Vineta main battle fleet completely changed this situation, as their oar-sail ships no longer had to fight two-on-one, and the warships started to engage in one-on-one duels.

When the sea battle turned into a seesaw fight on crowded decks, trading blow for blow, the side with thicker nerves and more immunity to pain won the victory.

In the end, the Tanyrians could no longer bear such bloody combat—they were not navy men; they were just a fleet cobbled together from pirates, adventurers, and speculators.
Your next chapter awaits on empire

With dreams of plunder and rewards, they'd taken to the sea, but when they realized they could not win this fight, all Tannilian warships began a desperate race to escape.

Revenge had not yet given up its resistance when the Tannilian fleet had already completely collapsed.

The pirates that could flee dropped their full sails recklessly, using strong winds and waves to push their speed to the limit as they blindly fled toward the dangerous waters to the east.

However, Spire did not get his wish fulfilled, for Drake had escaped.

Time returned to tens of hours before.

On the fiercely battling Revenge, the lower level of the sterncastle had been overrun by sailors from the Golden Lion, but the way to the second level could only be accessed through a narrow ladder that would not allow the sailors to advance easily, stalling their momentum.

At the ladder entrance to the second level, Drake swung his cutlass, chopping into the neck of a Vineta sailor, then kicked the now limp body down the stairs, laughing wildly, "Stop sending your pathetic underlings up to die, Spire! If you've got the guts, come up here and fight me one-on-one!"

Spire below, of course, wasn't going to trust Drake's bluffs, and since he was steadily gaining an advantage, he became even more unhurried, "I'm not in a rush; in fact, I relish the idea of slowing down time to enjoy your despair a bit longer! Hahahahaha! But don't you dare jump down yourself—I won't duel you even if you do!"

Drake's voice grew increasingly frantic, "Coward! Weakling! [Incoherent vulgarities]!"

The dirtier the insults from above, the louder Spire laughed, as if he were enjoying Drake's final moments of madness.

However, silently, he gestured to his crew, instructing them to dismantle two of the swivel guns on the gunwales and carry them into the cabin of the Golden Lion.

Spire carried on trading barbs with Drake; meanwhile, he swiftly loaded the swivel guns with ammunition.

"Just you wait, I'm coming up!" screamed Spire as he aimed the swivel guns at the stairwell.