Chapter 203: Bombardment of the Golden Flash (Part 2)
The Golden Flash was categorized as a bombardment warship.
In fact, it was also an experimental magic ship.
It used light cannon turrets and a main light concentration turret; this has never been seen on any magic ship before.
The Sheng Ming Empire had been developing the light cannons. Their attack style was very unique, and was poles apart from conventional alchemy artillery.
Compared to substantive alchemy shells, light cannons had a distinct advantage.
They were faster and more concentrated.
Therefore, the light beams were an immense threat to high level lifeforms.
Take Qi You.
The light beam was too fast for him to react to.
With its force restrained and concentrated within it, Qi You couldn’t defend himself against it. One must know that he had been using a defensive battle skill before it hit.
But a single light beam wounded him grievously!
The goal of testing the experimental Golden Flash was to see if its unique design was effective at restraining high level lifeforms. If it could target them, threaten them, harm them, and even kill them.
If it worked in practice, then the Sheng Ming Empire would mass manufacture this type of magic ship.
From this position, one could see why the Golden Flash emphasized offense first.
Second, to be able to probe the enemy and accurately lock onto them, its detection performance had to be outstanding too.
Offense was the top priority, then detection, and third was speed.
The Golden Flash was brazenly designed to be a flying magic ship!
There were few flying magic ships!
Magic ships were normally outfitted with large amounts of cannons, after all, long range bombardments were a main part of maritime combat.
A ship without hundreds of cannons would feel embarrassed to leave the shipyard.
But these cannons were usually very heavy, and some alchemy cannons with massive power were also extremely heavy.
If the cannon material was made of bad materials, it was liable to explode and will instead menace the ship it was on.
In addition, solid shells also had noticeable weight.
Ammunition dumps of solid artillery shells had to number in the thousands, and if it was less than a thousand, then one would be low on ammunition.
The combined weight of cannons and shells was an immense figure.
This weight made it hard to design flying magic ships around.
But the light cannon turrets didn’t have this problem.
Their light beams had no substance, and the light cannon turrets were far lighter than a bunch of cannons.
Since it had this giant advantage, wouldn’t it be silly to not design a flying magic ship like the Golden Flash?
Flight was always a great attribute to have.
Many troops couldn’t fly.
After the Golden Flash entered the scene, the fishmen and pirates got thrashed, and the cannons on both sides found it difficult to aim up enough to target the Golden Flash.
One had to be at minimum a gold level fighter to fly.
In fact, only a minority of gold levels had flying battle skills.
Casters could fly.
Fighters with special items could also fly.
However, as they flew towards the Golden Flash, they would be bombarded with light beam cannons.
Flight still retained its superiority.
It would also be helpful to increase one’s speed.
The reason was very simple – air resistance was far smaller than water resistance.
It is because it could fly that the Golden Flash’s speed exceeded magic ships of the same level.
Its speed would become its defense.
The Golden Flash had comparatively weak defenses.
Since it emphasized attack, detection, and speed, its defense and other attributes unavoidably because its weak links.
On the other hand, being designed around flight also restricted how much its defenses could be improved.
Because solid vehicle armor was too heavy, and installing it would greatly reduce speed and flight altitude.
There were excellent materials that could make both light weight and formidably solid hulls.
But doing so was not cost effective.
The Golden Flash had another big advantage.
Cost!
The Sheng Ming Empire had developed this magic ship to serve the Wilderness Continent expedition and to protect the long maritime supply lines.
The Sheng Ming Empire was powerful and wasn’t worried about extensive military battles.
In open combat, they were very confident.
What worried them was that guerrilla raids would destroy their ocean supply lines.
If an enemy adopted this kind of doctrine, the Sheng Ming Empire would find it difficult to protect themselves and the cost of it would be extremely high.
They had to dispatch many cultivators to man every node in order to ensure a degree of safety.
Therefore, if they could develop ships like the Golden Flash, and use them to protect their fleets, investigate the seas, and respond to guerrilla ambushes, then it would always be worthwhile to try.
If this project succeeds, then the empire would mass produce the Golden Flash.
And if one wanted to mass produce, then the biggest consideration was cost!
The light cannon turrets were cheap and were already mass produced.
By using these turrets, the Golden Flash had managed to control a key component of the cost.
Therefore, materials both lightweight and solid were not considered, they were too expensive.
It is also worth mentioning that the Golden Flash was designed well, and its gold treasures made up for its defensive weaknesses.
It was the Flying Whirling Discs!
The designer intentionally included these components.
In peacetime, these discs would be attached to the hull, and like a layer of dragon scales, they offered considerable defense.
Not only in physical attacks, but it could also reflect and scatter energy type attacks too.
The Flying Whirling Discs could be used for attack and defense.
When attacking, these discs would fly out, spin in the air, and were capable of shooting down and scattering the light cannon shots, forming a precise large scale strike.
Overall, the Golden Flash was a high offense and low defense flying magic ship.
This was the reason why Hun Tong had kept it out of sight until the later stages of the battle.
To accurately hit the pirate boats and stop Two Eyes Island’s wealth from leaving, Hun Tong had unleashed the flying discs.
The light net bombardment shocked enemy and ally, a gigantic battle result.
But now a problem had arisen!
Suddenly faced with a gold level cannon bombardment, Hun Tong didn’t have time to recall the Flying Whirling Discs.
Upon hearing the alarm, the old fishman elder was more worried, “Evade, evade now!”
Hun Tong had said that he wanted to give this magic ship over to the old fishman elder.
How could the old fishman elder not be worried?
But despite hurrying, it was too late.
A moment later, the giant fishman’s cannon fired from the ocean depths.
Gold level Electric Arc Cannon!
Gold level Python Bullet!
A thick and solid electric current charged into the sky.
In an instant, the world lost color.
The terrifying electric pillar left scorching flashes in everyone’s retinas.
Boom!
Even though the Golden Flash did its best to evade, it was still struck.
A piece of hull as large as a building broke from the main body.
A light cannon turret completely crumbled.
Flames were ignited.
As everyone watched on flabbergasted, the Golden Flash tilted in the air, and with a trail of dark smoke rising, it began to fall towards the ocean.