Chapter 311 - 306: Tense Preparations

Chapter 311: Chapter 306: Tense Preparations

A salty, fishy sea breeze blew across the coastline of the Grey Marsh Territory.

Baron Kroo stood on a sand dune, wiping beads of sweat from his temples with a handkerchief.

The sand beneath his feet was scorching hot from the sun.

The nearby beach had been transformed into a raucous training ground.

"Charge! You bunch of jelly-legs! My grandmother runs faster than you!"

Ola’s roars were deafening, even from a great distance.

Spurred by his bellows, a company of Knights was repeatedly practicing formation charges.

The Knights from the Dawn Territory formed the left wing. Their formations were impeccable and their movements precise, but their charges always seemed to be missing something—they lacked that final, decisive edge.

The right wing was comprised of Ola’s own Knight Order. Those Knights were one with their mounts, and every charge they made carried a ferocity that seemed powerful enough to shatter the very earth.

"It’s the same story," a noble from the Dawn Territory murmured. "Our Knights are second to none in skill, but that...drive..."

Baron Kroo said nothing.

He was looking at the coastline.

The skeletons of two fortresses had just "sprouted" from the sea. Resembling a pair of giant turtles, they had transformed the waters outside the port into three channels—one large and two small.

Countless workers swarmed over them like ants. The long arms of cranes traced arcs through the sky, hoisting tons of supplies to the top.

"A monster," Baron Kroo muttered to himself.

"What was that, my Lord Baron?" the noble beside him asked, not having heard clearly.

"I said, Velin Klein is a monster."

Baron Kroo repeated himself, his tone complex. "Look at those people. They don’t look like they’re performing forced labor; they look like they’re building their own homes."

In the past few days, the sense of superiority he felt as a Count’s vassal looking down on a mere Pioneer Baron had been slowly worn away by the sight of this vibrant, bustling land. Now, it was even being replaced by a hint of...fear.

「Minas Tirith. The top of the white tower.」

Diana, too, was looking down from above.

She felt the same unease and awe that was shaking her vassals.

"Your people... their morale is very high," she began, her voice trailing off slightly in the wind.

"That’s because they know what they’re fighting for," Velin said, standing beside her, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon.

"My Knights are complaining," Diana said, turning her head. "They say Baron Ola’s training methods are like driving livestock, and... there’s not enough meat in their rations."

"In times of war, protein must be prioritized for the units with the highest physical exertion. Like the laborers."

"I will compensate them with double meat rations after the war."

Diana hesitated for a moment before asking the question that was on everyone’s mind.

"That ’coral armor’... can it really withstand the impact of a Level 5 Sea Beast? My vassals... they’re anxious."

"Theoretically, yes," Velin replied. "The Lustering Crystal Coral has a hardness approaching that of steel. Its impact resistance far exceeds that of granite of the same thickness."

He added, "Of course, there are no absolutes in war. I’ve simply chosen the plan with the highest chance of success."

Diana looked at Velin’s profile.

’Ever since he was invested as a Pioneer Knight, he’s seemed like a completely different person. He’s always trying to dissect everything with logic, which creates a sense of distance.’

’But this damned rationality of his also managed to give her a strange sense of reassurance.’

「More than ten days passed in a flurry of tense preparations.」

The two sea fortresses were now complete. To keep the walls’ lethal capabilities a secret, they had been constructed entirely from fast-growing Red Leaf Trees.

Atop the fortresses, the muzzles of one hundred and twenty heavy ballistae pointed out to sea.

On the outskirts of Minas Tirith Port, three massive, bottomless trenches had been dug. Behind them stood a dense forest of sharpened wooden stakes and arrow towers.

The entire coastline had transformed into a monstrous war machine, silently waiting for its prey.

On this day, the sea was calm and the wind was still.

Atop the high tower, the soldier on lookout duty rubbed his dry eyes and habitually raised his spyglass to scan the sea.

Suddenly, he froze.

He lowered the spyglass, blinked hard, and raised it again.

On the horizon, where the sea met the sky, a razor-thin black line had appeared.

It wasn’t the wake of a fleet, nor was it a dark cloud on the horizon.

The line remained fixed in place, and it was slowly, visibly growing wider and thicker.

"WOOO—WOOO—WOOO—!"

The long, urgent blasts of the horn shattered the peace.

The hammering from the construction sites fell silent.

The shouts of the Knights on the training grounds died down.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and, as one, looked up toward the sea.

Velin, Diana, Tristan, Ola... all the commanders rushed to the top of the walls at once.

"Spyglass!" Velin said, holding out his hand.

A Knight immediately handed him a brass monocular.

Velin raised it and aimed the lens at the strange black line.

In his field of view, it wasn’t a line at all.

It was a black tide, formed from the convergence of countless moving black dots.

As the distance closed, the black dots grew steadily larger in his view.

The first things to come into focus were swimming at the vanguard.

They were giant sea turtles, each the size of a house. On their backs, crude ballista towers had been constructed from seashells and shipwreck timber.

Flanking the giant turtles was a dense swarm of giant sea crabs.

They brandished claws the size of houses, churning the sea’s surface into white froth.

Further back, giant sea serpents were faintly visible in the water. Crowded onto their backs were slick-skinned, trident-wielding fish-men Warriors.

"Father in Heaven..." On the wall, a young Knight seeing battle for the first time felt his legs go weak. The spear in his hand fell to the ground with a CLANG.

The color drained from Baron Kroo’s face.

He had served in the Southern Border Legion and fought the Sea Race several times. He knew this was no mere skirmish—this was a full-scale invasion.

"Unas must be insane..." he muttered, his voice hoarse.

Fear spread like a plague through the allied ranks.

Many soldiers’ faces turned deathly pale, their hands trembling uncontrollably as they gripped their weapons.

The pressure emanating from the Alien Race seemed to suck the very air from their lungs, making every breath an immense struggle.

The fleet of behemoths came to a halt about five kilometers from the coast, a black wall that blotted out the entire horizon.

In the very center of the fleet, the sea churned as a giant lobster, the size of a moving island, slowly surfaced.

Its carapace was a dark, menacing red. Atop its back stood a small castle constructed from the bones of great whales, the keels of shattered ships, and massive seashells.

At the highest point of the castle, a lone figure stood in silence.

He stood nearly three meters tall, his entire body covered in a carapace. Eight thick tentacles on his back swayed silently in the air, each one like a long whip poised to strike.

Unas the Shipwrecker.

His pupilless eyes swept coldly over the distant city carved from the mountain rock, and then to the two sea fortresses before it—fortresses that, in his eyes, were utterly laughable.