Vol·19 [Shall Never Surrender · Never Surrender]
Royal Ironclad Warrior.
Launched in 1860
Total length: 128 meters
Maximum speed: 17 knots
It is the work of Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria.
The iron armor encased in a wooden frame was, a hundred years ago, worn by armored sea knights.
It possessed all the characteristics of similar ships for the next 150 years and was the first battleship in modern history.
The primary power source is the mechanical force derived from the conversion of fossil fuels.
Over a hundred years ago, it was the fastest, most ferocious, most heavily armed, and most heavily protected warship in the world.
The moment it was launched, all wooden boats in the world, regardless of size, became relics of the past.
But these beautiful stories only exist in history.
This year is 2025. The historical symbolism of HMS Warrior has turned it into a maritime museum, just like Belfast, which is moored in the Thames River under the London Tower. However, Ironclad Warrior's fate is better. At least it stayed in Portsmouth, in the place where it was born and raised, next to the shipyard.
Its main armament consisted of twenty-six 68-pound cannons, capable of firing solid shot as well as hollow shot filled with molten iron.
The lethal range of this cannon is 2,900 meters. Note that this is the lethal range, not the effective range.
In addition, it also has an eight-inch muzzle-loading rifled gun, used to shatter teak armor that is more than 200 millimeters thick.
However, these weapons are nothing more than children's toys to the modern United Kingdom naval frigates.
"But better safe than sorry!" Mary Stuart, holding the satellite phone, shouted at the Prince of Blood, "You don't need to worry about my safety. All the troops in South Sea City are under your command. Use every means to destroy it."
An urgent and flustered response came from the phone.
"But the Holy Mother."
"There are no 'buts'!"
"But Our Lady! It has already set sail!"
"Then let's use shore bombardment to smash this old relic!"
"Impossible! Holy Mother! The United Kingdom would never fire on a museum like this. Do you really know what it represents?"
"I don't care, I don't know anything about ships, but in short, I absolutely don't want to see the sun shining on us, and you don't want to be in the sun either, right?"
"Mary! Listen carefully! Understand! Listen clearly! It is the first battleship in the United Kingdom and even the world, just like you—you publicly declare yourself the first chosen one blessed by the Blessed Holy Blood, and no vampire dares to harm you. To the military, the Ironclad Warrior is their Blessed Mother!"
"But the 68-pound cannon on this warship can fire 3,000 meters!" Mary argued hysterically with the prince. "Good heavens! It can also fire hollow-point iron bullets. The distance between the cumulonimbus cloud and the ground is only about 1,000 meters. It's not impossible for these bastards to create artificial rain through artillery fire!"
"Holy Mother, don't be anxious. I know you're anxious, but being anxious won't help, right? They've already set sail. If they could do that, they probably would have opened fire already. These old shipborne weapons don't have enough elevation angle; they can't just stupidly fire randomly into the sky."
"Then send SAS special forces to deal with them, call in amphibious assault troops, kill them all, and take the ship back."
"That's exactly what I was thinking! My Holy Mother!"
Before the words were finished, a piercing cry came from outside the door.
"Our Lady! Our Lady, they're here! Our Lady! Save me, save me!"
The desperate screams were extinguished by the explosion of bullets.
--Mary Stuart was extremely anxious at this moment.
Her scouts died swiftly under Jack the Ripper's blade, including three Blood Princes with Soul Might, all top-tier combat units recruited from the SAS.
Her heart was bleeding. Training these outstanding soldiers for modern society would not only cost a lot of money, but also consume a lot of energy and time.
These three princes were all baptized by Mary herself. They received various weapons training from childhood and underwent a brutal selection process from a young age. They are powerful warriors who are loyal to Our Blessed Mother.
But now, they are all dead!
He was killed by a ghost that appeared out of nowhere, from over a hundred years ago!
All three combat units possess Soul Might. Even the souls devoured by the Blessed Holy Blood and White Lady are still Soul Might, still Flash Butterflies!
However, when the communication signals of these combat units went out, they didn't even leave behind a single last word.
The remaining three Blood Princes were to deal with the antique warships at sea. To this end, Our Lady of Mary set an example by dispatching more than a hundred Bat Soldiers in full force. On this condition, other parishes were also required to send their elite blood bat troops.
At this very moment, in an effort to prevent the arrival of spring, over four hundred flying combat units from various parishes across London are rapidly converging on Portsmouth Port.
This was Chaderton Fort's weakest point.
--That was the moment Mary came closest to death.
Just half an hour earlier, she had a heart-to-heart talk with Leonardo, sharing her troubles.
After all, at this moment, only this godfather could protect her, protect her, this delicate, weak, and pitiful Blessed Mother.
Mary Magdalene had complete confidence in Leonardo's [Scarlet Mist]. The destructive power and precision of this soul force were rare killing weapons, even in her hundreds of years of vampire life.
As long as we can get through these three days--
--Able to weather the upheavals in the Red Queen Parish and complete the transfer of power.
--Dodge Jack the Ripper's knife and avoid the terrorist attack on the Abyssal Railway.
--Sink the Ironclad Warrior and kill those foolish sailors.
By nipping all these variables in the bud, Mary Stuart remained the Blessed Mother.
But just now, five minutes ago...
Leonardo's eyeball fell into her teacup.
From his mother, six hundred meters away, beneath the clock tower, it flew from the flowerbed courtyard into her teacup.
Who knows what kind of bomb the enemy used that destroyed half of the walls of Chaderton Fort?
At the same time, the worst news came from Portsmouth Port, a dozen kilometers away—
--The Ironclad Warrior set sail, and the mast that had seen the Great Demon raised the Union Jack, while the Black Prince's sails rushed into the raging storm.
Mary couldn't understand why this ironclad warship required seven hundred people to operate. The various jobs needed for sailors, service personnel, artillerymen, boiler operators, and other miscellaneous tasks were almost extinct in modern society.
Even if you took all the current United Kingdom personnel and picked out the seven hundred most learned and cultured men, they might not be able to pilot this old-fashioned vessel.
Who exactly is it?
"Who exactly is working against me?!"
Mary hid in a secret room in the study, a small room with an elevator that led directly to Zero Platform underground.
She was prepared to run away, but the intense greed within her tormented her mind and destroyed her will.
She felt an indescribable hunger within her. The Steel Heart on her ring finger didn't belong to her, and the ring size was wrong, but she insisted on cutting open her flesh and forcefully implanting the iron ring into her skin.
She could sense the other half of the ring, and that the other owner of this magical gemstone was wreaking havoc.
That violent yet icy and sharp spiritual pressure almost made her lose her mind, causing her to shed tears of resentment.
Is she regretting it?
--No, she was just annoyed.
Why couldn't she find the crown prince, Wang Cai, before the Hand of Omnipotence could?
Why couldn't she win the heart of this ruthless killer before the BOSS?
Leonardo sent good news and went to the manor gate to welcome the returning warrior.
Mary also planned to heat up a pot of blood tea to reward her men.
Only six minutes had passed since Leonardo's eyeball fell into her teacup.
In other words, Mary Stuart's godfather, who held her in high regard, and Soul Power, who was highly favored by her—these things wouldn't last six minutes in front of Jiang Xueming.
This was a premeditated terrorist attack. The BOSS bypassed the [Philosopher Foundation]'s regulations and released this tiger into the surface world for disinfection!
It all started with this ring.
Because of this ring--
--Just because of this ring.
"Is he really after this gem? After that bitch's arm? To blow up my castle and kill all my children? Now he's jumping around the castle with a gun and a club! All because of this damn [love]?!"
Mary Stuart couldn't understand it at all.
She looked around the CCTV monitoring room, scratching her head as she stared at the monitor screen.
"Who the hell is this bitch? Is she the epitome of a whore? The absolute worst of the worst? How can she command Jiang Xueming's stick? My God!"
In the scene, Sister Xue Ming picked up Tang Ning's shotgun and blew the legs off two maids. Then, she dragged them, one in each hand, from the washroom to the kitchen's garbage incinerator and cremated the two vampire freaks on the spot.
Mary recognized the gun.
--He was her sister Masha's lover, and Robert Tang Ning's sidearm.
"Now things are getting even more complicated! My head is spinning! You guys are coming one after another, and even if you die, you'll leave me with a ton of trouble!"
Mary was baffled when her deceased sister suddenly began attacking Mary.
According to the video recording from the forecourt, Jiang Xueming's weapon had been blown to pieces by the flames of the plastic bomb.
Mary recognized 9527, but she couldn't recognize Jiang Xueming at all, who had changed his appearance.
Not only that, when the clock tower alarm sounded, almost all the Bloodbat Guards rushed to the scene immediately and perished in the massive explosion.
That was a terrifying impact with a radius of over 150 meters. If Mary had seen the horrific scene of the Blood Church of the Skull and Bones Society, she would have been wary of the Nameless One's fighting style. Unfortunately, she hadn't seen the recording.
But the Hand of Omnipotence's [Thumb] has seen it--
That's why [Thumb] kindly advised Mary to turn back as soon as possible.
The two Stuart sisters had no idea that they had offended some terrible devil.
In the surveillance footage--
--The head chef was locked in combat with this ferocious-looking woman.
Occasionally, glimpses of chaotic stick shadows igniting blue flames and the blinding light of the Steel Heart could be seen.
Mary finally realized the woman's true identity, but it was too late.
"Jiang Xueming! This bitch is actually Jiang Xueming?" She screamed, grabbing her hair as if to tear her scalp off. "The pinky of the Hand of Omnipotence! It's the power of the pinky's spirit at work! You guys actually work for the station?"
As the head chef's strength waned, the Blood Bat's body cracked and splintered under the blows of the steel mace. The long table in the restaurant was riddled with bullet holes.
--Xue Ming had three gunshot wounds, and his MOLLE vest was tattered.
She carried a stick in one hand and tossed Tang Ning's pistol aside with the other, then used a healing spell to restore her health.
This body's ability to endure pain is almost inhuman, such as the abdominal laceration caused by a pistol bullet, and the puncture wound to her lungs caused by shrapnel from a full-powered rifle bullet when her bulletproof plate was hit.
If a man were to endure such pain, he would likely have difficulty even standing and firing a gun.
However, with this character account, you can even pick up a stick and blow an enemy's head off in the first instant.
Scattered throughout the castle, the nobles were either dead or had fled.
She looked down at her, brandishing her stick. "Where is Mary Stuart? You cook for her, so you must know where she is, right?"
The head chef was abruptly pulled back into human form from his bat form by a stick. His face was full of fierce features, and his eyes gleamed with malice. "Pah!"
Two laborers scurried through the corridor, their expressions panicked as they fled out. Immediately, gunshots rang out from the side door.
--Then 9527, wielding the ASH, blasted the two unlucky guys into a sieve.
Xiao Qi cautiously advanced with his gun at the ready, leaning against the doorframe and making coded hand gestures—meaning that if this guy didn't speak, plenty of others would.
Xue Ming immediately understood, wasting no more time, and raised the stick—
"--I'll talk! I'll talk, I'll talk!" The head chef still tried to struggle for survival.
The lion's bones fell heavily, like splitting a watermelon, exploding into a burst of scalding red mist.
Xue Ming pointed to the surveillance video, caught the shotgun that Seventh Brother threw to him, hung it on his side, and at the same time took shotgun shells from Seventh Brother's backpack.
"Mary! No matter where you run, as long as you wear the Steel Heart, even to the underworld, I will catch you."
Mary's face turned ashen; she trembled with rage at the threat of death.
She immediately removed the steel wedding rings, without the slightest hesitation, even though they left a bloody and horrific scar on her knuckles and wrist.
She glanced at the dressing room in the secret chamber, where her beloved younger sister Maggie was hidden, and another plan formed in her mind.
At this very moment, on the turbulent sea.
Salt-resistant plastic sheeting covers the containers on the deck of the Ironclad Warrior.
Captain Jim Tang Ning stood at the helm, shouting orders to his old friends and the young crew to stay alert.
"Speed 12 knots, course correct. How long until our new equipment is fully assembled?"
People were coming and going on the deck, moving cargo in the raging wind and rain.
--The ship needed to sneak out of port without the help of the coastal defenses, and it also needed to be fully loaded with cargo; time was of the essence.
The portly man put his first mate uniform back on and worked frantically in front of the instrument panel with the electrical engineers of the weapons systems.
"We only have 144 people! All the sons and grandsons we could call are here! Do you think this is a school field trip, Captain?"
"But the radar tells me!" Jim's voice boomed like thunder, "Something's coming! Hundreds of them! The coastal defense's tide patrol boats fired signal flares at us, telling us to stop immediately. I can see them with my own eyes! There are bats in the sky!"
The director of the nursing home was repairing the steam whistle in the communications room when he heard the captain's warning on the radio. He tensed up, and in a hoarse voice, pulled out a triangular iron the size of a clothes rack and ran between the sailors' quarters.
"The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming! The horn can't be fixed! Get up now! The enemy is coming!"
The two shifts of soldiers immediately got up from their warm mahogany antique beds, including Tang Ning —the young man was exhausted; he and the engineering vehicle crew had made more than twenty trips from Winchester South to Portsmouth Shipyard to deliver equipment to the Ironclad Warrior.
But it was all worth it.
The idea of using a 68-pound cannon to fire silver iodide into clouds with precision, and then detonating it within the clouds with a delayed fuse, is too fantastical and simply impossible.
However, modern ship-launched Sparrow missiles can do that.
Items that are unavailable in the United Kingdom can be sourced from distributors in India or Japan.
Tang Ning transported these shipboard items using four whaling ships.
The missiles placed under the salt-alkali resistant plastic sheet were the last bit of work he could do.
Its fire control unit can manually set the detonation height, and the warhead cartridge case can be filled with silver iodide. As long as the amount of explosive and the detonation height are well controlled, a single missile can create an artificial rain-dropping zone with a radius of 1.5 kilometers.
Its maximum speed exceeds Mach 4, which is too fast for any vampire to catch.
To avoid being intercepted by shore-based artillery, the Ironclad Warrior must sail further out into deeper water!
There were many difficulties and obstacles along the way, but as long as these twenty-six Sparrow missiles can be launched successfully, it will all be worth it.
Suddenly, a swarm of large bats swept across the dark horizon.
They were difficult to spot in the raging storm, and even the most skilled observers could not see these flying soldiers in such an environment.
Captain Jim roared, "Turn on all the lights!"
The portly first mate hurriedly replied, "Which lights?"
Jim: "All the lights!"
Three electrical engineers ran across the deck's command room, crawled through the old ship's deckways into damp timber tunnels to search for circuit switches, and could also see a large orange cat chasing mice in the bar.
Operating this ancient and cumbersome warship required far too few people; just turning on the lights took about forty seconds.
A chorus of sinister laughter echoed from mid-air, sometimes near, sometimes far, as if mocking the foolish actions of these old fogies.
The moment the ancient warship lit up its lights, the dim light illuminated the distant tide patrol boats, making them appear like a lamp in the darkness, even with visibility of only a hundred meters.
Sailors huddled in the steel railings beneath the mast, trembling as they held up crosses.
A deep male voice came from inside the speedboat; it was a representative from the vampire clan.
"I need to see Jim Tang Ning!"
Old Mr. Jim stood in the wind and rain, took off his hat, revealing his aged face and gray hair.
His face was like tree bark, showing the rings of time.
Immediately afterwards, the old man picked up a megaphone, leaned against the iron door of the command room in a very rude manner, and started yelling and cursing at the speedboat.
"You blind beast! Get the hell out of here! Do you want to experience the impact of the Ironclad Warrior's seven thousand tons?!"
The bloodthirsty nobles on the speedboat were stunned for a moment, followed by Jim's even fiercer cursing.
"Fuck you vampires! You think you can wear the naval insignia of a crown and anchor? We fight on the hills! We fight in the trenches! We fight in the fields! Even if all that's left are mortars, planks, and oars, we'll fight! We'll fight in the sky after we die! Even if this island, or most of it, is conquered and starved, we'll fight! We'll fight to the very end!"
The vampire on the speedboat persisted, urging, "Surrender, Jim Tang Ning! You are a veteran among veterans of the United Kingdom Navy. I don't know what tricks you used to bribe the Portsmouth Shipyard to go crazy with you, but—"
Jim immediately interrupted, yelling, "You damn piece of junk from the broadcast tower! Why isn't my voice as loud as his? Have you not eaten? I'm going crazy with anger!"
The voice of the captain of the polo team, who was leading the senior recreation activities at the nursing home, came through the radio. "Stop complaining. It's a miracle this ship can even move. Instead of worrying about that, why don't you ask Fatty when the weapons system will be ready?"
Jim immediately turned his head and asked, without even putting down the megaphone, he shouted loudly into the command room.
Where are our cannons?!
Fatty punched the avionics instrument panel hard, finally connecting the sturdy switch rivets and bayonets.
"Only one cannon is usable! Are you sure you want to fire now?!"
Captain Jim didn't hesitate. "Gunners, prepare! Correct coordinates! Adjust gun depression!"
The bloodthirsty nobleman on the speedboat was clearly panicked; he never expected this Old Bones to be serious.
Moreover, he was carrying a loudspeaker and repeatedly shouted the artillery firing order to everyone.
Captain Jim: "Ready?"
The announcer on the speedboat became even more terrified.
"No, no, don't surrender! You won't have a chance!"
"Is it coming?"
"Stop! Stop the fuck right now! Jim Tang Ning! You're going to be court-martialed!"
"What crime?"
"What the hell is that?!"
"Sixteen-inch battleship main guns! A gift from my grandson! Can you see the turrets?"
"I saw it! That's why I said! Stop the fuck right now! You're attacking the United Kingdom!"
The salt-resistant plastic sheeting was torn apart by the massive cannon barrel, and the turret's base platform was embedded in the hull of the Ironclad Warrior.
"Who is the United Kingdom? You are sucking the blood of my children and grandchildren! I am protecting my country and my people, and I want to know! Who is the Royal Navy? Is it you? Or me? -- Do you think I would surrender to invaders? Churchill said it at Dunkirk: We will never surrender! We will never surrender!"
"Wait! Haven't you noticed? You're surrounded, Tang Ning!"
"You mean those beasts in the sky? I was surrounded by them seventy years ago!" Jim, back in front of the control room, finally regained his composure amidst the deafening whistles of the broadcast tower. "I never imagined that returning home in glory would mean being besieged by these monsters for so many years."
"It's not just us, four frigates have already left port! If you take another step forward, you'll be heading to hell! You all have families, right? You veterans are actually planning to drag your children along and mess around like this! Why are you going against us? Do you really think you can sail this antique ship out of the harbor and around the whole of the United Kingdom?"
"I've been living in hell for a long time! All because of this rain! For this country, I lost an arm, a leg, and an eye. They're getting moldy every day, and these long-gone limbs still ache! God! As for how far this ship can go? I haven't thought that far! How will I know if I don't try!"
"Jim Tang Ning! Wake up! Your grandson is still on the ship! He was supposed to be an excellent carrier-based pilot! He should have been Matriarch Masha's lover! He was an elite figure favored by the vampires!"
"Boom--"
The roar of the 406mm main gun drowned out everything, and the scorching heat and muzzle flashes illuminated almost the entire sky, like the supreme light of the birth of Jesus.
The shockwave generated by the terrifying kinetic energy from the cannon almost stopped the rain for a moment. A dozen or so unlucky bat-shaped monsters hovering in the air fainted on the spot due to their keen hearing and fell into the sea to feed the fish.
Giant waves in the nearshore waters pushed the hull of the Ironclad Warrior aside, causing the entire turret to bounce and vibrate, and a deep trench was instantly torn open on the deck of the ironclad.
The small motorboat had disappeared; only a few pieces of driftwood floated on the dark sea.
Jim popped a cigar into his mouth.
--He stuffed another cigar into Tang Ning's mouth.
I borrowed a light from the first mate because he was very angry.
The chubby guy, cursing and swearing, climbed out of the center console amidst the massive shockwaves of the shelling.
"Do you even know what's going on?! Just for your momentary pleasure, all the weapon systems now need major overhauls! They can't withstand this kind of disruption!"
Jim's smile exudes confidence, Tang Ning's smile exudes strength.
The grandfather and grandson didn't consider the consequences at all, and exhaled smoke rings.
"Yay!~"
"Yay!~"