On the turbulent sea, a line of towering warships cut through the waves.
They were the fleet of the South Sea Alliance, and also the only organized naval fighting force in these waters.
Leading them was the cruiser Harpoon, a flagship that had distinguished itself during the civil war.
Four destroyers followed in the cruiser's wake.
Aside from the forces retained for homeland defense, the South Sea Alliance had deployed nearly every warship it could spare. Beyond the surface fleet, three submarines also lay scattered beneath the waves.
The Alliance had contributed greatly to the unification of the South Sea Alliance. Now that the Alliance was in trouble, the South Sea Alliance naturally had to stand by its good brother.
Although the survivors on the islands of the southern seas had little interest in the disputes on land, they knew perfectly well that the Legion's ambitions extended far beyond a single province from the old world.
They would probe the limits of the eastern survivor factions bit by bit, exploiting the weakness of the Academy and the Enterprise to keep pressing forward and squeezing the living space of the civilized world.
The South Sea Alliance would not let the Legion have its way. Its representatives understood deeply that helping other suffering survivors was helping themselves.
However—
The opening of this battle did not look promising.
Inside the bridge of the Harpoon, President Li Minghui, once again dressed in uniform, stared at the signals on the radar and sonar displays and narrowed his eyes slightly.
"...Heh. Looks like we have trouble."
Five hundred kilometers away, no fewer than twenty signal sources matching the characteristics of warships flickered intermittently.
The hulls of those vessels were coated in radar-absorbing material, and their technological level was clearly not low.
What was more, the moment