Badge in Azure

Against a powerful adversary, splitting the army was a huge taboo. Daliang City contained One-hundred and ten-thousand elites, Saleen was going to take away fifty-thousand of them and twenty-thousand auxiliary troops. That meant that Daliang City would be left with sixty-thousand main soldiers.

Saleen was not worried, his fifty-thousand men, which were stationed in the Bone Castle, could effectively contain the Cloudflow people. If the Cloudflow’s fleet could be extirpated in one move, then it would not even be necessary to use these fifty-thousand troops.

Lex’s main forces possessed high offensive power and had many cavalrymen. In this wilderness, the offensive power of Saleen’s army would be inferior to Lex’s. Saleen had brought along a camp’s worth of new equipment. Even if his first camp paled in comparison to Lex’s people this inadequacy could be compensated using equipment.

The development of the Bone Castle did not just require the magic materials used by a death mage. After Lex prepared all the required items for Saleen, Saleen then left with his first camp. He only stayed for a mere two days in Daliang City. Nicholas remained in Daliang City, but Su followed Saleen to the coast.

There was a shore there which spanned for over two-hundred miles and Lex had a small town at the center of it. Currently, most of the stationed troops had been withdrawn, only one emblem group remained to watch over the movements on the lake.

Even though the waters in this lake were sufficiently deep, there was not a good port. The warships escorting the envoy group were not withdrawn. They were instead digging into the sides of the shore and trying to develop a harbor which could accommodate large warships.

The Cloudflow people did not launch an offensive right away because the northern shore did not have any good spots for berthing ships. If the fleet arrived, its movements would be restrained. As long as the port was repaired warships from Cloudflow would then be able to obliterate the town from the lake with trebuchets.

Lex did not send anyone to attack the army repairing the port, there were dozens of warships on the lake which were aiming at the shore. The moment a battle erupted, the Cloudflow people would have an absolute advantage since they could tap into the power of their warships.

The Cloudflow people onshore were merely auxiliary troops, some were even genuine workers who had specially came to fix the port. Lex would not want to put her soldiers’ lives at stake by sending them into the enemy’s attack zone.

Saleen did not station any troops in this town, he sent his army east towards the rocky zone farthest east in secret. The terrain there was complex and fraught with reefs, a navy would not be able to get close to the area.

Saleen was going to assemble a warship there and he could not have done so without using a spirit warship. The Cloudflow people would not expect a powerful fleet to appear at a location one-hundred miles from them.

The Bone Castle was the main fortress in the death plane. As a grade-8 spirit, it was impossible for the winged skeleton to build it on his own. Luckily, he had already constructed numerous modules. Other than having to use brute strength to cement the foundation, the winged skeleton had already developed the main structure of the castle. That was why Saleen could guarantee that he could build this structure within ten days.

In ten days’ time, a gigantic castle which could accommodate one-hundred-thousand people could be constructed. Unlike a human castle, this castle was designed for spirits. There was a humongous Spirit Pool inside which could continuously dispense the power of death required by the spirits. In order to station troops inside, a warehouse for humans had been specially designed inside the castle. A garbage room and a magic installation for purifying the lake water were also built.

The jade skeletons went to deep waters to assemble the skeletal warships so they would not be discovered. The development of the Bone Castle had alarmed the Cloudflow people who were repairing the port.

At first, the Cloudflow people sent a two-hundred man cavalry squad for reconnaissance. Saleen decided to deploy an emblem group of mixed cavalrymen in the end. The two-hundred man cavalry squad was wiped out, none of them escaped.

Other than the powerful magic beast swordsmen, the cavalrymen from Cloudflow were worse than those from Qin. Not knowing the gravity of things, the Cloudflow army deployed another mixed emblem group. In the end, it was destroyed by Saleen’s knights. Less than two-hundred people managed to get away.

This time around, the Cloudflow people became more serious, they fixed the port hurriedly, preparing to receive the fleet at the rear. The winged skeleton could not possibly let these Cloudflow people live in peace. He slaughtered one-thousand Cloudflow soldiers before turning them into undead soldiers. These undead soldiers then went to assault the port.

Under the command of the winged skeleton, the undead soldiers went berserk and destroyed the port. The casualty rate was not very high, but many of the port facilities were corroded by their undead fluid, which meant that they had to be replaced.

At this moment, the Cloudflow people received news that Metatrin Kingdom had deployed a mighty death sorcerer. This offensive was obviously orchestrated by that death sorcerer. The defensive facilities around the port were then constructed and security was tight. The Cloudflow people acted as though they were facing a powerful enemy. None of their soldiers were elites and there was a scarcity of mages. If the death sorcerer decided to take risks he might even destroy the port.

Lex’s four emblem groups arrived right after and entered the colossal Bone Castle. They caused the atmosphere around the shore to be very tense.

On the last day of October the winds near the shore were very frigid. Saleen sent the winged skeleton to the shore to command the spirit fleet. At that moment all the warships were submerged, the magic arrays needed to be activated so that water could be expelled and the warships could float up. Only the spirit fleet could use such a method to go underwater.

Twelve diving warships were going underwater at the same time,. These warships were less than twenty yards long and their hulls had been crafted from expensive metals. If they sunk none of the soldiers inside would survive. Saleen had not trained any sailors to operate the diving warships, so the warships’ operations were run by the spirits.

Spirits with intelligence were extremely difficult to be summoned or created, so these twelve diving warships could only unleash their power if the pan’s turtle alchemical boat was commanding them. The winged skeleton only brought six jade skeletons along and they were in charge of commanding the skeletal warships. The diving warships were operated by grade-3 skeletal soldiers.

The winged skeleton nodded at Saleen, then leaped into the water. Mu En followed behind Saleen as he sobbed, then asked, “Your Highness, with him gone, what am I supposed to do?”

Saleen replied with a smile, “You only need to remain in the castle, you don’t have to go out for any more battles.”

The winged skeleton had left and there were no high grade spirits in the Bone Castle. Saleen could actually control some of the spirits summoned from the large magic array, but most of them would follow the winged skeleton’s orders and remain in fixed spots around the castle to defend against the enemy.

This was the power possessed by the Bone Castle itself. All spirits which entered their corresponding positions would attack any enemy who came too close.

After entering the sea, the winged skeleton wandered around the rocky area first. Sensing that even small ships would be in peril within an area of a few dozen miles from the shore, he swam into the depths of the lake.

Traveling one-hundred miles out, the winged skeleton contacted the six jade skeletons in the spirit fleet.

Out of prudence, the winged skeleton ordered the spirit fleet to float to the surface one-hundred and twenty miles away. In a naval fleet, the enemy would surely have a magic compass. Even though the capabilities of a magic compass were not uniform, the winged skeleton still used the safest distance. He stationed the fleet one-hundred and twenty miles away.

A magic compass would not be able to detect anything from a distance of one-hundred and twenty miles away. Even if it could pick up a moving target, it could not ascertain whether the target was a magic beast or warship.

As the surface area of the sea was too large, the winged skeleton did not allow the warships to venture too deep in case there were any mighty magic beasts around. Steering the pan’s turtle alchemical boat, he led the twelve diving warships towards the periphery of the harbor before splitting up. He observed the enemy’s activities every day.

A huge quantity of bone spirits were released by the winged skeleton. Some of them had even surpassed the lifespan of a bone spirit, evolving into grade-4 spirits. This grade did not signify any offensive power, only their lifespans were extended.

The lifespan of a normal bone spirit ranged from a few hours to a few days. At most, it would be one month.

These grade-4 bone spirits led the bone spirits of lower grades. They swam a few hundred miles in the water and surveiled the happenings on the surface of the lake. No targets would be missed by executing such a scatter-type search.

The Cloudflow people were obviously getting complacent. On the last day of the first week of November, the bone spirits delivered news that they had discovered Cloudflow’s warships. The Cloudflow people did not discover the bone spirits.

The winged skeleton immediately gave a command, deploying three teams to attack Cloudflow’s warships from the flanks. Another three teams would conduct a frontal assault.

From a distance of one-hundred miles, Cloudflow’s fleet had already discovered the targets, but no one cared. To them, the entire sea was their backyard, they could come and go as they pleased. They had never come under attack before.

When the targets were fifty miles away, the Cloudflow people then realized that something was amiss. There were too many targets and the targets’ speed was too high. A magic alarm sounded onboard the Cloudflow’s flagship.

The Cloudflow’s fleet was ginormous, there were at least two-hundred ships. The flagship was a metal-armored warship measuring two-hundred and twenty yards in length which could accommodate tens of thousands of personnel. The moment the magic alarm sounded, the airborne cavalrymen among the Cloudflow people immediately took off from the deck. They searched for any approaching targets in the nearby waters.

The Cloudflow people knew how to rear magic beasts and this type of airborne cavalryman was exclusive to them. During rainy days, they could not be deployed, but the skies were clear now. The Cloudflow people could not stomach the thought of the Bitter Water County daring to assault them.

Upon detailed observation, the winged skeleton discovered that Cloudflow’s fleet did not specially protect the ships carrying the soldiers. The main warships were situated at the front and the troop-carrying vessels were left about one-hundred miles trailing behind. Traveling at the rear were a dozen warships measuring less than one-hundred yards in length.

The winged skeleton was overjoyed, those over eighty troop-carrying ships were akin to a plate of delicious food. The troop-carrying vessels contained steel armor, trebuchets, alchemical crossbows, and mages. Their detection capabilities were much poorer than that of the main warships.

A high level magic compass was extremely expensive, only the powerful empires could equip their warships with them. It was impossible for these troop-carrying vessels to be fitted with high level magic compasses.

The winged skeleton knew that most of the enemy’s soldiers were placed on these troop-carrying vessels. As long as these ships were sunk, at least half of the troops, who could go onshore, would vanish. The skeletal warships were still fifty miles away, but the winged skeleton could not wait anymore, he gave the order to attack.

Twelve diving warships slowly breached the one-mile area around the troop-carrying vessels, floating up stealthily. The actions of the diving warships were very cautious as they were afraid of getting discovered by the enemy’s mages. The skeletal warships would have to sink the ships in front of them and wait for the retaliation by the mages.

Inside the diving warships the spirit machinery was operating the Spirit Pool which had been assembled at the last minute, releasing many bone spirits. Carrying a gigantic bloodstones, the bone spirits swam swiftly towards the troop-carrying vessels.