Under the enemy ships' relentless cannon fire, the Orcs Fleet could only keep adjusting its formation to protect its badly damaged warships.
The antiquated cannons mounted on their bows struggled to track the enemy ships as they nimbly circled around them.
Even when they managed to aim and fire in time, the old cannons' abysmal accuracy remained a problem.
Their cannonballs often fell just short and splashed into the sea.
Aside from intimidating the enemy, they achieved nothing.
Even the occasional hit inflicted little damage.
The ammunition those unscrupulous Goblin merchants had sold them was the cheapest junk available.
It consisted of iron balls that did not explode and could only cause limited damage to enemy ships.
Kul Tiras had strict requirements for the timber used in its warships.
Only the finest century-old trees were selected, and only the best sections of their trunks were used.
Although both sides had wooden hulls, the Orcs' cannonballs could not always punch through.
As a result, the two sides' fighting strength was on completely different levels.
The nightmare of this one-sided battering only ended for the Orcs Fleet when the enemy ran out of cannonballs!
Had the Orcs not improved their warships, their casualties would have been staggering!
As the fighting at sea subsided, the battle in the sky also drew to a close.
Two squadrons of Gryphon Riders had surrounded and attacked six artificially accelerated Red Dragons, yet ultimately inflicted only minor injuries.
Exhausted, both sides broke off the engagement in an unspoken agreement.
Though the accelerated Red Dragons had little intelligence, they knew to return to their original warships to rest.
That ruled out any possibility of further attacks on the Orcs Fleet.
Neither the Gryphon Riders nor the Kul Tiras warships dared attack the Orcs Fleet recklessly.
Seeing that they could do nothing about the accelerated Red Dragons, the Gryphon Riders returned to the warships to rest.
The Orcs Fleet did not dare continue toward Southshore without adequate protection, either.
They promptly turned around and left those waters, waiting for another chance to make a comeback.
Seeing the Orcs Fleet withdraw, the handful of Kul Tiras warships also turned around and departed.
This risky sortie had yielded excellent results!
They had tested the Red Dragons' strength and defeated the Orcs Fleet once again.
Although the Orcs Fleet's losses were smaller than last time, their own side had suffered no casualties at all.
Still, the Red Dragons' strength was a genuine headache.
Even surrounded by large numbers of Gryphon Riders, they could weather the attacks with their nearly invincible scales.
Some Gryphon Riders had risked drawing close, attacking with both their warhammers and their Gryphons' talons before finally managing to pry off a few scales.
This kind of close-quarters combat was extremely dangerous.
The difference in size was enormous. They were in entirely different leagues!
The massive Red Dragons could send a Gryphon Rider flying with the slightest collision.
In fact, quite a few Gryphons had been injured by collisions during the battle.
Fortunately, the Wildhammer Dwarves' Gryphon Riders were all Shamans with healing abilities.
Their Gryphons could receive effective healing and protection.
Even so, Falstad had strictly forbidden the suicidal act of fighting Red Dragons at close quarters.
The few scales they had risked their lives to pry off had done little harm to the Red Dragons.
There was truly no need to risk their lives fighting them.
However, the Wildhammer Dwarves were all stubborn by nature.
Though their leader's words made perfect sense, they did little to restrain them.
Had the Kul Tiras warships not headed back to replenish their ammunition, they would most likely have gone back to challenge the Red Dragons after resting.
Upon returning to Southshore, the Gryphon Riders proudly displayed the dragon scales they had obtained.
Herad requested one from them and subjected it to destructive testing.
The Red Dragon scale was a size larger than an adult's palm.
It looked like a small shield carved from red jade.
The Rangers secured it to a steel plate and fired at it with a large-caliber sniper rifle.
Ordinary steel-core bullets left no marks on it.
Even thorium rounds, with their powerful armor-piercing capabilities, could only leave insignificant scratches.
The hardness of the accelerated Red Dragons' scales far exceeded Herad's expectations.
Still, large-caliber antiaircraft cannons offered some hope.
The Rangers drove an antiaircraft Arcane War Machine onto the firing range and aimed its dark cannon muzzle at the dragon-scale target a short distance away.
Antiaircraft cannons used proximity fuses fitted to their shells to detonate them in midair and damage enemy aircraft.
Only small-caliber antiaircraft cannons with high rates of fire relied on direct hits to destroy enemy aircraft.
But to kill an accelerated Red Dragon, loading thorium armor-piercing shells was the only option.
Naturally, the shell used to test the dragon scale was also a thorium armor-piercing round.
The thorium projectile struck the dragon scale without ricocheting.
Its tremendous kinetic energy was unleashed in full, shattering the extraordinary biological material, which was as hard as diamond.
After shattering the dragon-scale target, the projectile flew several hundred meters farther and blasted a deep crater into a cliff face.
Looking at the evenly shattered fragments of dragon scale, Herad thought of tempered glass.
Tempered glass was made by using chemical or physical methods to create compressive stress on its surface.
Before an outside force could break tempered glass, it first had to overcome that surface stress.
This greatly increased the force tempered glass could withstand.
As long as that layer of stress could not be overcome, tempered glass was invincible.
But if an attack exceeded what the tempered glass could withstand, the entire piece would shatter into remarkably uniform fragments.
Perhaps dragon scales worked on a principle similar to tempered glass.
But given the strength of dragon scales, fragile glass clearly could not compare!
Herad no longer dared imagine how strong a genuine dragon scale would be!
Could mortals really kill those rulers of the skies, with their incredibly hard scales and immunity to magic?
Fortunately, true Dragons all obeyed the rules established by the Titans.
They would not take the initiative to become enemies of mortals.
Even the fallen black dragons only caused trouble through schemes and intrigue.
Otherwise, how could any other creatures in this world survive?
While Herad marveled at the Dragons' power, the retreating Orcs Fleet successfully returned to the harbor in the Wetlands.
Protected by the decks and bulkheads, the Orcs inside the holds had suffered relatively few casualties.
However, the Dragonmaw Clan had suffered considerable losses in this naval battle!
Although all six accelerated Red Dragons had survived, every one of their handlers had died.
Those had been some of the Dragonmaw Clan's few elite handlers.
As Zuluhed stared at the empty saddles on the Red Dragons' backs, his grief was beyond words.
The elderly Orc Warlock looked like an old dog with broken legs, utterly pitiful.
Orgrim patted his shoulder with concern, offering comfort.
Then Orgrim shared some ideas he had been considering.
"These dragons are certainly formidable! But your lads can't withstand the enemy's attacks.
Perhaps you should assign a few more dragons to each lad. That would provide protection from every direction."
As Zuluhed considered Orgrim's suggestion, his eyes gradually brightened.
"Using more dragons to protect the handlers... that does sound workable. I'll arrange for new handlers and dragons to come over right away."
The Dragonmaw Clan did not have many elite handlers.
But accelerated Red Dragons were plentiful.
During the few days the fleet had been away, another six Red Dragons had completed the Dark Magic cultivation process.
As time passed, the number of accelerated Red Dragons would only continue to grow.
If six accelerated Red Dragons were not enough, they would send twelve, or even eighteen.
With three Red Dragons for each elite handler, they should have enough numbers to overwhelm those Gryphons.
Once they dealt with the troublesome Gryphons, the humans' ground forces would fall without a fight!
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