Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

"I'm waiting for you! [Swear word]!" Drake cursed viciously as he lit the fuse of the iron pot filled with gunpowder in his hand; he had been stalling Spire with talk precisely to buy time to make this makeshift bomb.

As the hissing iron pot was thrown down the staircase, the two swivel guns loaded with grapeshot that Spire had brought over also fired, sending dozens of nut-sized pellets flying into the second deck, where immediate screams ensued.

In the moment the swivel guns fired, Spire also noticed the object hurled down from above; he immediately ran towards the lower decks, and as he shouted, "Run!" the iron pot exploded, its force clearly felt even by those aboard The Glorious nearby.

"You... you XX are really despicable!" Amidst the smoke-filled sterncastle, Spire cursed for the first time during the exchange.

"Hmph, aren't you the same?" Drake replied with a sneer.

"Too bad your iron bomb exploded in halves and wasn't very powerful; it was just a loud noise."

"Your cannons hit the wood and hardly injured anyone."

Deep down, these sworn enemies knew all too well that they were essentially the same: Drake was Tanilia's Spire, and Spire was Veneta's Drake.

Silence fell in the sterncastle, with only the sounds of combat echoing from elsewhere on the ship.

"Surrender, Drake. You're at a dead end, and you certainly won't live, but I assure you a swift end without the indignity of capture," Spire said, genuinely sincere this time.

Above decks, Drake, pressing on the wound in his arm caused by the swivel gun, instinctively wanted to utter some harsh rebuttal, but suddenly felt disheartened.

Spire was right: aboard the Revenge, the Venetians were unstoppable, and the Tanilian fleet on the sea was crumbling—Drake had been utterly defeated. For the first time in his life, he truly understood what it meant to be at the end of his rope.

Drake gripped his cutlass once more, grinding his teeth as he said each word, "You'll never capture me alive!"

In the moment the cutlass touched his own throat, Drake heard one of his men shouting, "A ship! It's ramming us!"

Into the deep night, a large, black-sailed ship silently entered the battle scene from the northwest. It didn't join the melee, instead heading straight for the Revenge's starboard side, and collided at full speed with the Golden Lion.

With the force of the violent collision, the large ship brutally struck the middle of the Golden Lion. The huge inertia caused the ship to mount right atop the Golden Lion, its bow raised high, the weight of the entire ship transferred to the keel and ultimately to the body of the Golden Lion.

The Golden Lion was desperately groaning as it broke in two amidst the painful creaking of its hull.

A group of boarders swung from the large ship onto the Revenge's deck, and the leader, armed with four revolving pistols and wielding twin cutlasses, swept through the Venetians on deck like a tempest. Discover more content at empire

Drake recognized this uniquely shaped large sail ship, and even more so the berserker dancer of twin blades. He laughed wildly, as if saved from certain death and shouted, "It's the Phoenix! Captain Kenway is here! Hahahaha! You're all going to die!"

Drake's remaining men, upon hearing the name Phoenix, reignited their will to fight and followed Drake down to the decks below.

However, Spire and the crew of the Golden Lion had already been driven back into the cabins by the Phoenix's boarding team.

Drake, grasping the shoulder of the boarding team's lead man, said crazily, "In the end, you still came to my aid! Nalesho is right there on that ship, let's go obliterate them all! We haven't lost this battle yet!"

The man removed his hood, revealing none other than the legendary captain and master of rigging, Edward James Kenway, who had tried to stop the war until the very last moment.

"I'm not here to back you up," Edward said, dispensing with pleasantries and knocking out Drake with a fierce punch.

Taking Drake with them, the Phoenix's boarding team quickly returned to their own ship and sailed away.

The entire assault was as swift as lightning, and by the time the officers on The Glorious could react, the Phoenix had already rescued Drake.

Warships pursuing the fleeing enemy reported sighting a black ship entering the reef-strewn waters. No ship dared to follow the Phoenix into the reef area; to the Venetian sailors, a ship entering the reef was as good as sunk, and there was no point chasing further.

The battle was a resounding victory: at the cost of losing seven Venetian galleys and three large sail ships, the Vineta Fleet captured four warships including the Tanilian flagship Revenge, five armed merchant ships, and sunk or burned one warship and three armed merchant ships. The remaining Tanilian ships fled into the Dead Sea area east of the Lighthouse Port, their fate unknown.

The warships stolen by the Tanilians from Haidong Port had all been recaptured or sunk.

The Tanilians could no longer muster a fleet capable of confronting the Venetian navy head-on.

It was indeed a grand victory.

The loss of three large sail ships resulted from being ignited when breaking through fire ships; the flames couldn't be controlled, leading to the entire crew abandoning ship.

Fortunately, The Glorious was not burned down. The Revenge's gunners targeted The Glorious's waterline with heavy cannon, causing The Glorious to take on water and sink.

As the hull began to sink, the panels nailed to the bow also sank into the water, extinguishing the fire on the fire ship. The Glorious's sailors, fighting for their lives, plugged the holes below the waterline and snatched the fleet flagship from the brink of sinking.