Volume 10 Call from the Sea Route Chapter 6 Melee at Sea

Looking at the utter devastation across the Chanas Sea, Libin wanted to kill Xuanyu with a passion. Standing atop the city wall, he shouted into the sea before him, "What a disgrace! To be beaten right to our doorstep—this is a grudge I will surely settle."

Without another word, Reed and Cadoqin immediately took to the sky with the bone dragons and nether dragons, charging in the direction where Xuanyu's floating island was retreating.

Half an hour later, Cadoqin flew back alone and shouted loudly, "Master, quickly think of a way to send troops! That fellow named Shuiyuetianlian has started fighting with Xuanyu's forces."

"And where are the nether dragons under your command?" Libin asked in a loud voice instead of rushing to dispatch troops.

"They are already helping Shuiyuetianlian's people," Cadoqin replied.

After a moment of thought, Libin immediately issued his orders: "Everyone capable of flight, get moving! Form them into a squadron and let Cadoqin lead them over first. As for the rest of you who want to come, follow me to the Vampire Castle. Since the Vampire Castle can only carry a limited number of troops, I want elites only."

Hearing this, Libin's heroes scattered in an instant, running back to summon their respective troops. His personal guards, meanwhile, followed him closely without a single step lagging behind.

In particular, the sixteen trained liches and the doom heralds spoke directly to Libin: "We are the elite of the elites. If we don't go, who can?"

In no time at all, the modest Vampire Castle was packed to the brim with Libin's most elite forces. Libin was certain that if this Vampire Castle were to accidentally plunge into the sea, the losses would be enough to make him cry himself to death on the spot.

Fortunately, however, the Vampire Castle slowly floated above the battlefield Cadoqin had described. Looking down from the sky, the scene below was indeed rather thrilling.

Xuanyu's volcanic floating island was trapped in the middle by several coral-shaped floating islands belonging to Shuiyuetianlian, and his subordinates were locked in constant combat with Shuiyuetianlian's forces on the water.

Judging from the battlefield conditions and troop numbers, both commanders seemed to favor an elite troop strategy, yet their combat styles had distinct focuses.

Xuanyu was the type to fight boldly and spend recklessly; if a troop died, it died, and he would just swap in a fresh batch. His lower-level units were directly labeled as cannon fodder, used to drain the enemy's stamina and counterattack counts, thereby paving the way for the combat heroes behind them.

Shuiyuetianlian, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. All his troops guarded themselves cautiously, and the moment a unit's health dropped to one-third, it was immediately dragged to the rear to recover. After a prolonged battle, he hadn't lost many troops, but the consumption of medical supplies in the rear was quite substantial.

Yet, there were exceptions on the battlefield. At the very edge of the combat zone, three of Xuanyu's grey sea dragons were clashing with six of Shuiyuetianlian's blue sea dragons.

That fight was utterly earth-shattering. Any creature that came near them was treated as an enemy and instantly obliterated. Reed's bone dragons and nether dragons dared only circle at a distance, lacking even the courage to fly down, and judging from their condition, they had suffered quite a heavy beating.

However, Libin's other aerial detachment was not nearly so cowardly. Led by Cadoqin, the unit circled once above Shuiyuetianlian before launching an attack on Xuanyu's cannon fodder forces.

How could Xuanyu's hastily assembled cannon fodder and sacrificial units possibly match these aerial overlords? In no time at all, two paths were torn open through them, granting Shuiyuetianlian direct access.

Naturally, Xuanyu's counterattack at this moment was quite potent. Not caring in the least about the cannon fodder he had just recruited, he concentrated his squad-based combat heroes and forcefully drove Shuiyuetianlian's forces back.

Provoked to this extent, Shuiyuetianlian could no longer contain his fury. Seated atop a steel-armored pig, he waved his hand, and nearly fifty octopus tentacles rose from the ocean floor, tightly wrapping around Xuanyu's floating island with the intent to drag it down.

At a glance, those were the legendary Freedom-faction Level 12 units, mighty octopuses. There were at least a squad of them, and within moments, the floating island—which had been relatively stable on the sea surface—began to sway and show signs of sinking.

Seeing this, Xuanyu grew somewhat anxious. He had heard the infamous reports of Shuiyuetianlian using twenty-four giant cart-octopuses to collectively drag away over thirty smuggling and pirate ships, and he terrifiedly feared his floating island would meet the same fate.

Consequently, he unleashed his strongest subordinates: a full squad of Level 12 combat heroes, all half-purgatory frost elementals taking the form of merfolk, clad in blue and white scales with sickle blades radiating biting cold air, slashing directly at the octopus tentacles.

Observing this from mid-air, Libin instantly conceived of the most satisfying countermeasure and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Doom Heralds, wipe them out for me!"

This turned out to be catastrophic. Xuanyu had merely noticed Libin's forces circling in the sky, never expecting retaliation to strike so swiftly, launching such a lethal blow against his strongest troops the moment they appeared. Before he could make a single move, the half-purgatory frost elementals targeted by the doom heralds saw a skull symbol flash above their heads. Immediately afterward, five of them collapsed on the spot, turning into piles of ice slag.

The remaining three half-purgatory frost elementals who had cheated death didn't have much longer to live either; the black magic tomes held by the sixteen liches behind Libin had been hovering for a long time, the spells upon them having transformed into words swirling around the liches, awaiting only Libin's command to be unleashed.

Meanwhile, Shuiyuetianlian seized the opportunity as well, charging into the fray with a squad of Level 13 giant narwhals.

Realizing the situation was dire, Xuanyu made a decisive choice, abandoning everything in his hands as he turned and plunged straight into the sea.

Libin immediately issued his commands: "Cadoqin, go help Reed deal with those sea dragons. Ted, take the three troublemakers to that island; pillage as much as you can carry. Everyone else, deal with the stragglers on the sea surface—stop looking at me like that, keep in mind that most of these troops are combat heroes and hold very high experience values."

Reluctantly and with no small amount of grievance, Libin's subordinates went to deal with the remaining enemies on the water. In the final tally, the only thing that managed to escape alongside Xuanyu was a single sea dragon modified into a half-purgatory creature.

Landing the Vampire Castle upon Xuanyu's floating island, Libin was promptly approached by two water servants who looked entirely made of seaweed. They announced that Shuiyuetianlian wished to see Libin and invited him to their main floating island, the Crystal Palace.

To such a request, Libin truly had little to say. Having no pleasant impressions of Shuiyuetianlian—who had previously extorted three of his sea dragon eggs—and with Xuanyu having already fled in defeat, Libin simply and cleanly made an excuse to return to his city.

Naturally, under the pretext of claiming the rights to the spoils of war, Libin took the liberty of towing the entire volcanic island away with him.