The Rise of the Black Plain

In the blink of an eye, dozens of people on that ship invaded by Angela had already died!

Their bodies were pierced by long spears made of ice, some as thick as adult human fists, while others were thin, like children's fingers.

In any case, many corpses pierced through with these objects created by Angela's technique were already piling up the sides of that ship, while some of them were even floating in the sea.

However, regardless of how vicious the attacks that claimed their lives were, all those corpses bore expressions of despair and pain, indicating how terrible their experience had been!

Dying was terrible, but the experience of dying of old age in a bed surrounded by family members was infinitely better than falling into the underworld after fighting to the death. Or rather, being slaughtered by an enemy who used techniques that naturally caused excruciating pain was not good at all.

Particularly for people attached to life who wanted to continue to exist, as in the case of almost all cultivators in this world.

Therefore, none of those people could have semblances of tranquility after having had parts of their bodies pierced by Angela's spears. At the same time, their insides had been burned by ice, the main component of such objects.

But the more this woman had killed on this ship, the easier and faster her job of successfully taking over this warship became.

Because of this, it didn't take long for her to deal with all the people in the outermost parts of that enemy ship and then to end this crew's existence.

...

After some time since this conflict had begun, of the 26 enemy ships remaining from the beginning, another 13 had sunk in this area under the attacks of the 20 ships of Minos' forces.

However, Minos' forces had not fought this hard without suffering. After all, this was naval warfare. Apart from strategy and numbers, techniques or things like individual skills were not crucial in such a region.

Consequently, they couldn't go through all this without suffering harm!

They had even managed to cut their losses quite a bit in this place, as the strategy of the Black Plain Army, the fact that they had attacked first, of sabotage and internal members, had all helped them to improve their chances.

But to leave this place without any 'scars' was impossible!

Because of this, three ships of the Dry City forces had sunk in this coastal region of Maritime City, carrying the bodies of dozens of soldiers to the bottom of the sea.

But while the initial part of the battle had been very shocking, with cannon shots from both sides in that coastal region, it wasn't long before both sides ran out of ammunition!

Naval conflicts were not common to happen in this region, after all.

On the other hand, cannonballs, the cannons themselves, were expensive items that cost a lot for the units and their operation.

The items needed for the cannons were objects made by blacksmiths and array masters.

And as arrays, these items had the common characteristic of these items, of consuming spiritual energy to function, specifically, of being more efficient by consuming energy directly from crystals and not from the atmosphere.

For this reason, the use of these armaments was very costly!

Consequently, there were not so many cannons on these ships, nor were there cannonballs.

So, when fighting battles like that, as long as one side survived the attacks of the other, the course of the battle would change, and there would be a chance for a 'fairer' fight or an escape.

And so, after several minutes of intense naval warfare, those two sides had finally calmed their actions somewhat when no more cannonballs were flying around that coastal region.

Unfortunately, even though they were not sunk, some of those left floating ships had suffered dramatically in the initial moments of this battle.

Some had had only superficial problems, something that after brief maintenance they would be as good as new, without much loss to their owners. But others, the majority, had been badly damaged, and it would be impossible for the people there to escape from that place safely on these ships.

That was because of the power source used by these means of transportation!

Ships in the Spiritual World could depend on three sources of power to move through bodies of water. One was the power provided by arrays, the most common to be used on most ships in this region of the Central Continent.

The other two alternatives were to use the mechanical strength of humans or beasts to move such structures.

Sea beasts were more efficient at doing this for obvious reasons. But in this region, none of the local organizations used such a thing, for the simple reason that they were incapable of taming sea beasts!

Finally, there remained human strength and the strength of some land beasts, which, yes, could be helpful but was by far the worst of the three alternatives.

And because of this, those ships most affected could only depend on human strength, something that might not be interesting for those survivors.

After all, more ships on the side of Minos' forces had been left in a condition for pursuits to be carried out.

Consequently, when the cannons stopped firing in that coastal region, it didn't take long, and several people could be seen abandoning their ships!

It was better to simply run away from the ships unable to carry them away and bet on those with conditions good enough for the power arrays to work.

With that, quickly, the crews of the Brown family warships in this place abandoned 10 of the 13 remaining ships in hopes of surviving if they joined one of those three remaining means of transport with good conditions.

As for the Minos ships' side, only 5 of them had been damaged to such an extent, while all the others were well enough for the power arrays to continue to function.

In any case, on both sides, several people on each of these ships had suffered injuries of various severities, some of them even having died!

The strength of the ships could not be compared to the bodies of these cultivators, after all.

With that, although most of the crews had abandoned their ships, the number of people swimming in that part of the coast of the Maritime City was not significant.

...

"Damn it!"

"Those damn invaders were powerful!"

"Look at how many problems and casualties we had!" Some soldier on one of the ships with Collins family symbols commented to his comrades as he lay on the floor.

"Yes, but the enemy side had almost twice our numbers at the beginning of it all..."

"But now they are fleeing in only 3 ships, while we are in 17, 12 of them with sailing conditions." Another person said, looking at the bright side of it all.

"Still... We cannot fall easily to these enemies. Each of our dead is worth dozens of theirs!"

"There's nothing to be done. We have to defeat the enemies even if it hurts us a little to do so..."

"It is better to lose just one finger than the whole hand!" An elderly man commented as he looked at the injured soldiers on that ship.

That was a cruel reality. But that was the world they lived in, and thinking that such a thing was unfair, or something like that wouldn't change anything. It would only be a way to escape from reality without it turning into good fruits that would perhaps lessen the burden of their losses.

Losing comrades on a battlefield was terrible!

Many were much more than just strangers, members of the same organization. Some were long-term friends, and some were even intimate partners.

But to die fighting for your ideals was infinitely better than to live on your knees, perhaps like a slave who lives for his master and not for himself.

It was better to die fighting or even lose good comrades on the battlefield than to put your family in danger of death, torture, rape, slavery, etc.

Everything they did was for their families or themselves. Therefore, these people understood very well that no matter how painful it was, sometimes stepping in the blood of their comrades was part of life in this cruel world.

"Sigh..."

"What shall we do now? Should we chase these fugitives?" Someone asked as he looked in the direction of those three ships, where more and more people were approaching them, swimming.

"Let them run away."

"We won't be able to catch up with them anyway..." The older person there said as he remembered that those ships of theirs and their enemies did not differ much.

As such, a chase in their current state would probably only lead to losses without benefits.

"As opposed to chasing them, we should take the opportunity and gather up all those bodies, as well as the damaged ships left behind."

"That might make us quite strong!" The same person said, commenting on the order left by Angela before she left in the direction of Maritime City.

....