Chapter 380: Ice Sculpture Navy vs Divine Wind Pirates
This ambush came far too suddenly.
Fifteen warships seemed to materialize out of thin air!
The dragonman youngster was utterly stunned by this unexpected turn of events. Prior to this, the Deep Sea Monster Fish had detected nothing.
“This ambushing fleet possesses highly advanced stealth capabilities!” the dragonman youngster thought to himself.
Even he had been caught off guard, let alone the pirates of the Divine Wind Pirates.
In truth, since departing Snow Bird Harbor, they had pushed their speed to near maximum.
By midnight, having reached a safe distance from Snow Bird Harbor, the first mate ordered a reduction to normal cruising speed. The weary crew was slipping into complacency.
At that very moment, a hail of cannonballs struck!
The Divine Wind Pirates suffered a devastating blow.
“Enemy attack!” The lookout on the crow's nest shrieked, but it was too late.
Fortunately, the Divine Wind Pirates had their own defenses.
As a barrage of cannonballs descended, the sails of all three pirate ships burst into brilliant light.
One by one, the sails swiftly detached from their ropes, drifting into the air before rapidly unfurling and spreading to form multiple layers of protective domes.
Shells struck the dome canopies, triggering violent explosions.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amid the deafening barrage, the protective domes were torn layer by layer, yet they had bought the Divine Wind Pirates crucial reaction time.
"What kind of sails are these? Do they actually have defensive capabilities?" The dragonman youngster piloted the Deep Sea Monster Fish, concealed deep beneath the ocean's surface, camouflaged as a motionless reef.
It was his first encounter with sails possessing such defensive capabilities. Curiosity piqued, he couldn't help but draw parallels to his own mercenary corps.
“These sails hold significant tactical value. If we could acquire them, perhaps we could equip our own ships.”
The sudden ambush left the dragonman youngster both startled and conflicted, a mix of delight and apprehension.
He'd been agonizing over the lack of opportunity to rescue Lan Zao.
Then, tracking them into the night, his chance arrived.
Yet he also worried: “Lan Zao, you must hide deeper. Don't let this naval battle cost you your life.”
Gaining a moment's respite, the Divine Wind Pirates fully activated their defenses.
Whirlwinds swept in, intercepting the follow-up cannon fire.
Seeing their cannons ineffective, the ambushing warships immediately began casting spells.
In an instant, magic fluctuations surged everywhere, stirring the elements across the battlefield.
“Who on earth is attacking us?”
“These magic fluctuations... the enemy has at least a hundred magicians!”
"Wait, that emblem belongs to the Li Jian clan!
“Damn it, they're the Ice Sculpture Kingdom's Second Naval Fleet!”
The dragonman youngster was unfamiliar with noble crests, but the Divine Wind Pirates, who'd dealt extensively with the Ice Sculpture Kingdom, knew them inside out.
The pirates instantly identified the enemy from their naval ensign.
Their shouts were picked up by the Deep Sea Monster Fish and carried to the dragonman youngster's ears.
“The Ice Sculpture Kingdom's Second Naval Fleet?”
“But why are all their ships so small?”
This question echoed among the pirates as well.
The Second Naval Fleet vessels present looked vastly different from what they remembered.
Feng Lian spoke up: “Looks like these are the Ice Sculpture Kingdom's latest warship designs.”
Fifteen new warships encircled the three pirate vessels at the center.
Each warship was crowded with magicians on deck, chanting spells.
These were regular military troops, even more elite than the magic teams at Snow Bird Harbor.
Feng Lian wouldn't sit idly by. He immediately maneuvered the Divine Wind and led the other two pirate ships in a breakout attempt.
The Divine Wind surged forward with fierce momentum, but barely had it broken through when it encountered an obstruction.
Though its path ahead held nothing but open sea, the space before it suddenly thickened and hardened, like an invisible wall blocking the three ships.
“Kong Pan!” Feng Lian frowned slightly, uttering a name.
Within the new warship, a gold level magician stood with her eyes closed, sustaining a spell.
She was an elderly female snow elf, her hair streaked with gray, and her face deeply lined with wrinkles.
Unlike most snow elves, she was not thin, in fact, she was quite plump.
This was Kong Pan, the second-in-command of the Li Jian clan and concurrently the captain of the Ice Sculpture Kingdom's Second Naval Fleet!
Kong Pan Li Jian stood with her eyes slightly closed, holding a magic artifact in both hands.
This artifact resembled an empty white dinner plate.
This was her primary spellcasting artifact, enabling her to lock down a specific spatial area.
It was indeed Kong Pan's spellcasting that caused the battlefield space to warp, temporarily trapping the three ships of the Divine Wind Pirates.
“The best way to break a spatial spell is to kill the caster!” Feng Lian made his decision, gripped his scythe, and immediately soared into the air.
The space suppressed him, an invisible pressure attempting to force him back down to the deck, but Feng Lian resisted.
He first ordered a full-scale reconnaissance to pinpoint Kong Pan's location before casting a detection spell himself.
The dragonman youngster discerned the situation: “There's a powerful magician aboard the warship who cast a spatial spell.”
“But the caster's exact location remains undetermined.”
“Is this the magician's doing, or the protective measures of these warships?”
Sensing Feng Lian's intent to cast a detection spell, the kingdom’s navy immediately dispatched assassins.
A gold level battle qi cultivator flashed forward, wielding a slender sword aimed at Feng Lian's head.
Clang.
A sharp ring echoed as sparks flew.
Feng Lian's scythe successfully parried the gold level battle qi cultivator's slender blade.
The gold battle qi cultivator smiled faintly, flew backward, and vanished once more.
“Yue Qian...” Feng Lian's brow furrowed even deeper.
Yue Qian was also a member of the Li Jian clan, the most outstanding talent the clan had produced in recent years.
His vanishing and reappearing weren't due to invisibility spells or speed exceeding visual perception—he was directly traversing space.
The Li Jian clan was the proud owner of the Inner World bloodline, renowned for its spatial prowess.
Building upon this foundation, generations of the Li Jian clan had sought out, developed, refined, and perfected meditation techniques and battle qi techniques specifically tailored to this bloodline.
Yue Qian's battle qi technique, the Sky Leap Art, stood as the most classic example.
Feng Lian declared loudly, “Kong Pan and Yue Qian are both here. I presume ‘Sand Between Fingers’ is here as well?”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a woman's voice echoed across the battlefield: “Feng Lian, we were testing a new warship when we received an urgent military report stating you were harassing Snow Bird Harbor.”
“How amusing. You dare raid one of the kingdom's eight major harbors with only three ships?”
“Tonight, you shall willingly surrender your life.”
Feng Lian snorted coldly: “Even if all three gold level commanders of the Second Fleet arrived here, it would be useless.”
“Even the saint couldn't capture me. What good are more gold level ships?”
“I haven't plundered Snow Bird Harbor. I haven't even fired a single shot.”
“If you insist on forcing the issue, you'll bear the consequences.”
“If you can't kill me here, I will unleash my full vengeance upon the entire kingdom!”
Such threats plunged 'Sand Between Fingers' into silence.
Even Yue Qian vanished from sight.
But soon, Kong Pan's voice echoed across the battlefield: “Feng Lian, there's no need for false bravado.”
“Had I not set up this magic formation, you could come and go as you pleased.”
"But now, this battlefield is sealed by my spell. You are a turtle in a bottle, a bird in a cage—no longer able to soar."
“Surrender peacefully, and I may spare your life and those of your men.”
Negotiations had failed.
Feng Lian snorted coldly and lunged toward the nearest warship.
When Kong Pan spoke earlier, he had detected a faint magic fluctuation.
Like the Snow Bird Harbor City Lord, Feng Lian was also a dual cultivator of magic and battle qi, possessing profound mastery of wind-element spells.
Feng Lian threw himself into battle with full force, his scythe sharp and exposed. With each swing of his scythe, he unleashed waves of blood and carnage.
He effortlessly slaughtered most of the personnel on the warship's deck.
But these were regular navy troops after all—their morale remained high, and they fought to the death without retreating.
Feng Lian didn't engage them in prolonged combat. He charged deep into the ship, then swiftly flew back out.
He had lunged at nothing.
It was a trap. An alchemy device inside the ship had mimicked Kong Pan's magic aura, causing Feng Lian to misjudge the situation.
It was a trap. An alchemy device inside the ship had mimicked Kong Pan's magic aura, causing Feng Lian to misjudge the situation.
Yue Qian stormed the Divine Wind, unleashing his own storm of carnage.
He moved with ghostly agility. Even when surrounded, he could effortlessly slip into the gaps between space or directly traverse dimensions to appear far away.
Seeing this, Feng Lian had no choice but to return to reinforce his ship.
There was no alternative. He commanded only three vessels, while the navy fielded fifteen.
The enemy vastly outnumbered the Divine Wind Pirates.
Thus, even though his slaughter was more efficient than Yue Qian's, such a trade-off in manpower was untenable.
As Feng Lian returned, Yue Qian vanished in a flash.
“The navy's tactics are working.”
“Yue Qian probably can't defeat Feng Lian, but just by employing this tactic, he's tied up Feng Lian and prevented heavy casualties on the navy's side.”
The dragonman youngster watched the battle, absorbing and learning as he observed.
He was still biding his time.
For now, the pirate ship hadn't descended into chaos, and no opportunity for rescue had presented itself.
What troubled the dragonman youngster was that the pirates were already on high alert, with even the Bayonet Gang members actively preparing for battle.
But the dragonman youngster saw no sign of Lan Zao.
“Even if he's only bronze level, in this situation, a low level transcendent is still a reliable combat asset.”
“Where has Lan Zao gone?”
“Could it be that he's been discovered and imprisoned?”
In a solitary cabin.
Lan Zao lay on the bed, fast asleep.
His bloodline was frantically reshaping his body, triggering relentless fever and excruciating pain throughout his frame.
Even in slumber, Lan Zao's brow remained furrowed in agony.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Scythes and slender blades clashed, producing shrill, metallic screeches.
Yue Qian fought Feng Lian with all his might.
The sailors aboard the warship finally completed their incantations. Countless spells poured down like a torrential downpour onto the pirate ship.
“Hahahaha!” The first mate of the Divine Wind laughed heartily at the sight, "Let me show you the new toy we've acquired!”
Alchemy component—Anti-Counter Cyclone Eye.
The bow cannon fired straight upward.
The projectile was a gold level eyeball.
Spinning wildly in midair, it formed a miniature tornado within a second or two.
The vortex enveloped the Divine Wind, sucking in all surrounding magic attacks.
The navy's second wave of assault was thus neutralized!