Chapter 781: Maelstrom

Translator: alyschu

Boom boom boom!

A violent naval battle was breaking out on the sea. Ships were breaking under the bombardment of skills, and the sky was changing color from the sheer amount of skills that both sides were throwing at each other. Even the powerful tides paled in comparison to the massive battle above them.

......

Almost two hours of head-on battle later, the Northern Alliance’s fleet finally turned around and retreated.

Ship fragments could be seen everywhere, and countless players had died in the sea. Players couldn’t swim in the deep sea for long because their movement speed was only 25% the usual, and their satiety consumption rate was 10 times higher. They would starve to death in an hour or two at most even if no one bothered to secure the kill, not to mention that there were plenty of aquatic carrions and flesh eaters like the piranhas that would love to feed on them.

"They finally retreated..." Chaos Moon gazed toward the distance from her deck. Her ship wasn’t a Dragon God Warship, so there were a lot of holes in it.

A smiling He Yi was also gazing toward the distance. "It won’t be long before they return. They’re simply reorganizing their troops because the battle turned out to be disadvantageous for them."

"Mn." I nodded in agreement.

Li Chengfeng asked, "What are your losses, Lu Chen?"

I replied, "Well, our command ship took little to no damage, and our Dragonlight Cavalry is perfectly unharmed. We only lost a couple of archers in total. What about you guys?"

Li Chengfeng smiled. "We’re doing okay. We took out 12 ships in total and lost 174 players. By the way, where is Xu Yang? I remember seeing his ship for a bit, but after that it was like he just vanished into thin air."

Du Thirteen replied from the distance, "That’s because his ship was crushed by the enemy. He’s currently aboard my ship right now..."

We all laughed when we heard that.

It was at this moment Snowy Cathaya’s Dragon God Warship sailed up to us. The proud Fruit Knife Goddess reported, "I’ve tallied our casualties. We destroyed 409 enemy ships and lost 102 ships in exchange. Clearly, we have the upper hand in this naval battle."

I nodded. "Well, that’s natural. A Divine General deals far more damage to a ship than a Famous General. There are 3 of us, and they have none."

Lin Yixin nodded in agreement. "So, do we wait for them to come back to us, or do we press the attack?"

He Yi gazed to the distance again and pointed. "It’s fine, the enemy has already decided that for us..."

"Oh, their main force has finally arrived..." said Lin Yixin while following He Yi’s gaze.

......

Just as the girls mentioned, a gigantic fleet of ships suddenly sailed out of the fog shrouding the horizon. However, what surprised me was that their frontline was made up of almost a hundred Dragon God Warships. A single Dragon God Warship cost 150k gold, so 100 Dragon God Warships cost 15 million gold to buy!

"OMG. Just how rich are the Koreans?" Chaos Moon exclaimed in astonishment. "Wouldn’t it hurt to lose all these ships?"

Li Chengfeng laughed. "It’d better! Get ready, everyone! It’s time to take out these Dragon God Warships!"

"Let’s go!" I raised my arm as well. The naval battle was about to restart!

......

At the beginning, both sides exchanged a volley of gauging shots, not really dealing too much damage to each other. Then, Li Chengfeng and Chaos Moon’s warships rushed toward the enemy fleet while Li Chengfeng beseeched the golden war god to possess his body, empowering himself. He launched three sword auras straight at the Dragon God Warship closest to him.

Chiang chiang chiang...

The impact resulted in shrill, metallic noises, but the Dragon God Warship only suffered some scratches on its armor. It didn’t falter even though its attacker was a Divine General.

"Fuck’em!"

Enraged, Li Chengfeng raised his sword high and summoned a magical formation beneath his feet. A moment later, a couple of cyclones rose into the air, and the image of a golden dragon manifested around his body. Dragonblade Revolution, go!

Boom!

This time, the AoE skill managed to pierce a huge hole in the Dragon God warship’s armor. As sea water poured ferociously into the ship, the Korean players exclaimed in astonishment, "Aaaah, What the fuck!? He could pierce even Dragon God Warship’s armor!? Wait, the boss said that he’s doubling the bounty on the dragon warrior! His killer will get a million gold as a reward!"

A couple of Dragon God Warships immediately turned their ships around and pointed their cannons at Li Chengfeng. A high-level player carrying a warblade shouted, "Open fire! Destroy his ship!"

Bang bang bang!

A ton of cannonballs pierced through Li Chengfeng’s ship and tore it to shreds in no time. Countless Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players were killed or severely injured in that one moment.

When the smoke faded, all that was left on the sea surface were fragments and litter.

Thud!

Li Chengfeng and his mount were lucky to remain standing on a broken plank after that bombardment, but the rest of his troops didn’t fare nearly as well. He shouted encouragingly to the brothers and sisters floating on the sea, "Hang on! Help is coming right away!"

Not far away, Chaos Moon’s ship was destroyed in the exact same manner!

Unable to restrain myself any longer, I ordered, "Come on! We need to cover for them! Du Thirteen, rally our ships and rescue Li Chengfeng and Chaos Moon from the water!"

Lin Yixin also volunteered to help. "I’ll come with you!"

A Dragon God Warship could only be dealt with by another Dragon God Warship. After all, the dragon armor was strong enough to ignore cannonfire, meaning that a normal ship was useless against them.

......

Even with Lin Yixin by my side, we were two Dragon God Warships versus 50 enemy Dragon God Warships at least. That didn’t mean we were afraid in the slightest, of course.

"Kill!"

The Koeans pulled out their weapons, turned their ships around and rammed them straight into ours. A moment later, both sides were engaging each other in melee already.

He Yi unsheathed her weapon and took out an entire swathe of enemies at the ship’s railing. I myself charged straight toward the enemy and—having learned my experience from the earlier battles—used War Crush the moment I landed on their deck and followed up with five Ancient Seals in a row.

While they were busy screaming in pain, I rushed into the ship hold and used Burning Blade Slash and Thousand Ice Slash!

Bang bang bang!

The entire ship started shuddering madly, and it was only after I leaped back to my ship did the enemy realize what I had just done. The next moment, they squealed like a pig, "Oh shit, oh shit! That CGL ranker penetrated our ship! How the fuck did he do this!"

The enemy players who jumped onto our ship to fight us were only more shocked than they were. They no longer even had a ship to go back to.

Our Dragonlight Cavalry easily killed or knocked the invaders down into the sea.

......

Less than half an hour later, our ships were surrounded by at least dozens of Dragon God Warships. No one had expected the Korea server to spend this much money and purchase this many Dragon God Warships for a single battle.

As a result, our casualties kept increasing as a seemingly endless amount of mounted players rushed onto our decks in an attempt to overwhelm us. And they were succeeding. Despite He Yi and my best attempts—even our pets were giving it their all—there was just no winning this battle. The enemy simply outnumbered us too much!

On Lin Yixin’s warship, the Ice Dragon Kris was breathing draconic fire at the enemies and slaughtering them like cattle.

After an Ice Flame Slash crashed down atop of a group of enemies and annihilated them, Lin Yixin leaped up to the bow of her ship and shouted, "Little Cheat, we can’t keep fighting like this. We’re almost fully surrounded, and we’re almost separated from even our own forces. We need to break out and find a better opportunity..."

"Mn, got it. Let’s do it!"

I immediately turned the ship around and sailed full speed toward the southeast direction. Of course, I didn’t forget to clear out all the enemies on the ship as fast as possible by cooperating with Beiming Xue and the rest of our ranged players. Behind us, Lin Yixin’s warship was following closely behind.

However, at least 50 enemy Dragon God Warships were giving pursuit. They already realized that only our guild leaders possessed Dragon God Warships, and they fully intended to take us out first. In this case, toppling the king first was most definitely a sound strategy!

......

Bang bang bang...

We had been bombarded non-stop since the beginning of the battle. Although the cannonballs couldn’t damage the ship, us players weren’t nearly as impervious. Even I took over 10k damage per hit, to say nothing of everyone else. It was annoying to say the least.

"We can’t let this continue! It’s only a matter of time before we sink!" He Yi said urgently.

I grabbed her hand and said steadily, "Calm down, Eve!"

"Does that mean you have a plan?"

"Nope!"

"Oh, you!!"

......

Suddenly, Lin Yixin pointed to the front and shouted, "Little Cheat, look! The waves ahead of us seem a bit strange!"

"Yeah!"

I had noticed it as well. Instead of the usual wavy pattern, the sea water was spinning as if it was trapped in a circle or something. What on earth is going on here?

He Yi stared at it for a moment before exclaiming in realization, "It’s... it’s a maelstrom!"

"A maelstrom?!"

"Mn!"

He Yi nodded seriously before continuing, "When different streams of water clashed against one another, it could form gigantic maelstroms that are extremely dangerous to anything around them. A maelstrom is a natural phenomenon that is shaped like a funnel, and the moment you get into range, it’ll be next to impossible to escape! We need to turn the ship around right away!"

"But there are 50 Dragon God Warships biting at our tail right now..." I reminded her.

He Yi bit her lips worriedly as she tried to think a way out of this. Suddenly, she looked at me and smiled. "Lu Chen, I have a very bold idea that I want to try. Will you support me?"

I pointed at the crew on the deck and said, "There are less than 500 people left on this ship anyway. Feel free to try anything!"

He Yi nodded. "Alright then. Full speed ahead!"

Beiming Xue exclaimed, "But Sister Eve, we’ll fall into the maelstrom!"

"Correct! That is the plan!"

He Yi’s eyes shone brightly as she explained, "Once we’ve entered the maelstrom, we’ll follow its orbit and speed up our ship at the last moment! With luck and good timing, there should be enough centrifugal force to break our ship free of the maelstrom’s influence! Our enemies may not know about physics, so I think we can use that to our advantage!"

"Alright, let’s do it!" I nodded and told Lin Yixin the suggestion. She agreed immediately because she also thought that He Yi’s idea was viable.

......

And so, both our ships sailed straight toward the maelstrom.

Behind us, the 50 enemy warships continued to give chase without any idea of the danger that lay directly ahead of them. It was because the sea waters they were sailing on were still relatively calm, and they were too keyed in on our butts to pay attention to anything else.