Badge in Azure

Saleen’s voice was cool, but everyone cheered when they heard his voice. Saleen spoke the common language from the mainland, when the swordsmen from Sregl Island heard the news, they reacted excitedly even though Saleen could not hear their voices.

“Mister Saleen, we will kill them all!”

Truman who was stuck, guarding at White Rock Mountain, was extremely exhausted. He needed to monitor the ice sheet at all times. Once the enemy attacked, he had to counter attack aiming at the enemy’s large scale weapon.

The battle made them feel aggrieved. They were first robbed of two warships and one hundred elite soldiers were killed. Then, the enemy constantly taunted them, but did not attack with full force.

Truman was very upset with Daniel’s command. The first counter attack was too ferocious, none of the enemy managed to return. Their enemy was careful. If he intentionally let some slip away, the enemy would increase their attack power and they would be able to use their magic cannon in the battle.

Kredian analyzed the enemy’s language and was certain that they were from an island nation from the east. There were twelve ships that could carry dozens of thousand of people. If all of these people stepped foot on the ice sheet, he could kill a few hundred in one shot or make more enemies drop into the water. They were in trouble then as the enemy did not send the main principle force and that signified that a stronger attack was in the making.

The disturbance was annoying. Those enemies from the island nations did not seem to be afraid of death. They tried to break down the line of defence near the harbor multiple times and every time left some dead bodies behind. They were using the limited sacrifices to mentally torture the defenders, to constantly put them under pressure.

Truman’s magic standard was not high, but he liked to read books related to war. He was familiar with all sorts of battle strategies. That small scale battle counted for nothing. Truman was a rare kind of mage that had the quality to be a general.

If he was the one giving commands for battle, at least everyone would not be as tired. Daniel was pushing everyone too hard and that was not a good sign. When Truman heard that Saleen was back, he immediately gathered confidence. He did not think that Saleen would give better command, but Truman knew that with Saleen there, everyone would be encouraged.

It was very easy when one talked about battle. If the supreme commander brought about unifying force, it could increase the fighting will of the army. During the time when Saleen was away, Kredian could only try his best to make everyone guard at their positions, but he could not carry out any other orders.

When Saleen returned, the first thing he told everyone was that he would take revenge for those who died. It did not sound like a mage, but like a nobleman. That was what the warriors liked to hear. Their weariness was caused by a psychological factor. One sentence from Saleen made everyone let go of the burden in their hearts.

“Master Jason’s disciple is really amazing!” Truman was chosen by Jason for Saleen, so of course he was the same kind of mage as Jason. On Sregl Island, about half of them supported Jason. It was just that Jason’s level was not the highest on the island so it would not make a difference even if he had more supporters. Jason did not want to break any rules himself either.

He wanted to expand the the living space on Sregl Island. All mages on the island agreed, no doubt. The act of Jason supporting his own disciple to do so was suspicious and people wondered if he was abusing power for personal gain. The mages from Sregl Island who had the ability to do so were trapped on the island fighting against fire type element spirits. The remaining people’s ability was insufficient and they did not have Saleen’s kind of behind-the-scene backer, so no one objected.

Speaking of support, it had to be a mage that Jason believed in. Truman was the representative of such a mage. These mages thought highly of Saleen as Saleen became a grade-5 mage at such a young age and it was a definite that Saleen was going to clinch the level of a sorcerer someday.

Saleen was arranging warriors to prepare for a counter attack. On the Pan’s Turtle alchemy boat, the few mages and Nailisi were asleep. They would attack when the time came. The winged skeleton was keeping watch and the fleet would not be able to flee. For them to prepare to haul the anchor and set sail would take at least one hour’s time.

The outer shell of the alchemical boat was already dark green, in blended in with the sea water. Even one with perfect eyesight would find it hard to notice. The ship was originally the shell of a sea creature, Saleen did not add anything superfluous like a magic array. On the sea surface, a few lizard like bone spirits were paddling around while looking after the enemy’s fleet.

Among the fleet, the lamp signals were blinking. With the sky growing dark, it made it easier for the winged skeleton to monitor them. It was difficult to use any sound transmission magic array unless they were on the same ship. Any communication magic array would require a stable coordinate. The ships were floating on the sea and it was extremely difficult to get a fixed coordinate.

The winged skeleton stopped their ship right underneath the fleet. The sea water was less than three hundred meters deep. The area was considered as the extent of the mainland so the water depth would not be like the deep sea. The winged skeleton could easily monitor those ships.

The magic clock struck twenty-one and the winged skeleton released a bunch of nail sized bone spirits. Those bone spirits were self invented. They swam to the water surface and climbed onto the metal chains that held the warships from Sregl Island. They started gnawing on the chains with their teeth.

Saleen did not want to let two of their warships sink along with the enemy as those were gifted to him by his teacher and there was practicality in keeping them. If it was not for the fact that there was no one handling the ships, it would be impossible for those people from eastern island nations to take them away.

The small bone spirits had really sharp teeth. Under manipulation of the winged skeleton, they climbed up the chains to the part just below water surface and starting gnawing. The warships from Sregl Island lay at anchor at the spot too. It actually was not a suitable spot to lie at anchor as the water depth was too deep for a warship. If they wanted to haul the anchor to leave, the water depth would delay them greatly. Saleen saw that factor and that was why he let the winged skeleton stay to guard against them. It would be difficult for their enemy to flee, so attacking from both sides would be the best way to vent his hatred.

At the end of the day, Saleen was a Sikenqinyan. If it was possible, Saleen would be willing to use gold coins to fight against the enemy instead of bloodshed and war, but Saleen had returned and saw a hundred dead bodies on the island with their armor removed. On top of that, many of their hands and legs were chopped off. No matter how good Saleen’s temperament was, he would not leave any of the enemy alive.

Kacha kacha. The sound that the small bone spirits were making was inaudible underwater, hence the guards on the ships did not notice. A bone spirit was not a high level creature, but the metal chain that was connected was not alchemy metal. With about half an hours time, the metal chain was only one bite away from falling apart.

The bone spirits stopped under the winged skeleton’s command. With such a thin chain, there was no need to cut further. When the enemy’s warship sank, the metal chain would automatically break.

On the twelve ships, only the flagship had lights. The remaining ships were in the dark. “The enemy doesn’t look like they’re going to attack tonight.” The winged skeleton was delighted, the success rate of Saleen’s plan had increased tremendously.

A few transformations of the alchemical boat added the green spirit that Saleen had gotten in the swamp. Now the number of bone spirits saved was not considered too many.

It could only produce twenty-four bone fish that could be used to attack warships daily, but there were many bloodstones. Most of them were used as fuel for the spirit pool and the remaining twenty-four pieces were kept for the bone fish.

At the stern of the ship, there was a newly added small spirit pool that could only produce six bone spirits daily. They were higher level, but they would still have to attack with bloodstone as there were no new methods of attack. Most of the magic attack distance and damage would decrease underwater. Even though the attack method of the bone spirits was slow, the distance was far enough.

The bone fish could then attack a target three miles away. The new bone spirits produced at the stern of the ship could attack a target six miles away.

Back then Judikaka opted bone fish as an offensive bone spirit because the speed of the fish was extremely fast, up to hundred and twenty miles. In other words, within the distance of three miles, they could hit the target within one and a half minutes if the target was sitting still.

A bone spirit was a type of death creature. As long as the distance between the enemy and the ship did not outdo the distance that spirit pool could control, bonefish could tail the target until it ignited the bloodstone.

There were many green spirit gemstones inlaid around the spirit pool. Those low standard green spirits could contain summoned creatures, but due to their low level, the space was limited. Luckily, the bone fish were small so these lower standard gemstones were sufficient.

The green spirit could store twelve days worth of bone fish produce in the spirit pool at the bow of the ship. The other bone spirits could only store very little. With a spirit pool that could store twenty-four bone fish daily, the winged skeleton had three hundred and twelve bone fish on hand. To fight against a warship, it would require at least twelve bone fish to ensure a steady win. Three hundred and twelve of the bone fish could attack twenty six targets at once.

The enemy had twelve ships and the winged skeleton was very careful. He used twelve bone fish on each of the eight fully armed commercial ships, and as for the remaining four warships, the winged skeleton used four times the dosage to ensure that the four warships would be unrepairable and to sink entirely.

The magic clock was slowly approaching twenty two o’clock. The winged skeleton gradually released bone fishes and very quickly, there were over two-hundred bone fish that went through the magic crystal from the bow of the ship to wait for the winged skeleton’s next command. The stomach of the bone fish bulged a little as all of them had a bloodstone that could explode anytime.

Bloodstone was commonly seen in the death dimension and it was very stable there, but on Myers Mainland, where signs of life everywhere. Bloodstone would only be safe temporarily in the stomach of bone spirit. Once a bone spirit was attacked, the bloodstone would be ignited.

The five mages and Nailisi woke up and looked at everything nervously. Although they were hidden at a depth of two-hundred meters, they had to be alert if the enemy had counter attack measures. A sorcerer might come underwater to look for the ship and that would be the scariest. The five mages were prepared to drive the ship away at its top speed while Nailisi stood before the attack magic array. If they failed to flee, the Ice Bomb spell would be quite powerful in the water. At least the magic array that Saleen designed would not be affected by the underwater environment.

This was the first battle using the Pan’s Turtle alchemical boat and it had to face twelve opponents, even Nailisi was nervous.

Ding!

The magic clock made a light buzzing noise, it was twenty-two o’clock.

“Start the attack!” the winged skeleton’s voice resounded within the ship. Two-hundred and eighty-eight bone fish swarm upwards with lightning speed and formed a white line in the water.