Ravaging

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Heavy shells flew from the gun barrels, hurtling toward the enemy warships under immense kinetic force. The officers and sailors of both the Island Nation Navy and the German Navy fought with all their might, each trying to sink the other's ships. For them, if they wanted to live, they had only one path: kill the enemy.

Shells exploded in the seawater, throwing up towering columns of spray. This stretch of ocean seemed to boil.

Although the Island Nation Navy's Combined Fleet had more warships, it held no advantage in battle. Even though it was launching an encirclement offensive against the German warships, it was instead being suppressed.

"Boom!"

After fifteen full minutes of ranging fire, the German Navy's Expeditionary Fleet finally scored its first hit. A shell fired by the battlecruiser Derfflinger struck the Island Nation Navy's battleship Satsuma. The heavy 380mm Shell easily tore Satsuma's two-inch deck armor to pieces. Only after punching through several bulkheads did the shell explode, its tremendous force turning the entire bow of Satsuma into a complete mess. Fires immediately broke out inside the warship. Island Nation sailors rushed into the blaze before they even had time to put on gas masks, trying to extinguish it. No one knew how many died beneath the poisonous smoke.

"Damn it! Put out that fire, now!" Colonel Kichijima Shigetaro, Satsuma's captain, roared.

If the fire spread to the ammunition magazine, things would be disastrous. As a pre-dreadnought, Satsuma displaced only a little over nineteen thousand tons. Not only was its armor weak, but many of its internal compartments had poor defenses as well. Even a raging fire could inflict fatal damage upon the warship.

That order sent even more Island Nation sailors charging into the inferno, using their lives to put out the