Sea Battle

"First volley, Ice Spear!"

Although fire magic was more powerful, rain was pouring down from the sky. No one was stupid enough to use it now.

With a series of whooshes, seven long spears of ice shot out almost simultaneously, tracing long arcs that bracketed the Zhiyuan.

White Bone intercepted two spears in midair with Disintegrate, shattering them into ice-blue dust that dispersed. The other five struck the water around the ship, freezing into large sheets of floating ice.

Five near misses, two hits on target, and they had bracketed the ship with their very first volley!

"They're strong, and they know what they're doing!" White Bone told Su Ming gravely. Ship No. 2 had bracketed them, and a continuous barrage of rapid attacks would follow.

Far behind them, in the direction of the Temple of Light's camp, the wyvern unit was not yet ready, but human figures were rising into the air one after another. At least some priests of high rank or above were beginning to give chase.

If they couldn't quickly widen the gap, Su Ming and White Bone would inevitably be intercepted by high-ranking spellcasters even if they escaped the naval fleet. What was more, the temple had several bishops and an archbishop as well. There was no time to lose.

So Su Ming couldn't maneuver to evade.

Aboard Ship No. 2, the gunnery officer adjusted for dispersion and angle of fire, then organized another volley using the same lead as before.

A little surprised, White Bone watched the dense volley of ice spears plunge into the sea behind them in unison, piling up into a large floating iceberg.

"Su Ming, are we going faster?" She took the goggles a skeleton servant handed her and put them on. At last, the raindrops stopped striking her eyes.

Su Ming had swiped them from a hardware store earlier to wear while working. White Bone had just sent a servant to fetch them; otherwise, her eyes were hurting quite a bit.

"I don't know. The boiler's temperature is over the limit!" A string of warning lights flashed, and Su Ming hurriedly checked the engine room. The zombies were crushing wood and adding it to the boiler's fuel chamber, everything just as he had arranged.

"What was the hull made of again?" Su Ming suddenly remembered.

"Cloud Ironwood, a very hard kind of wood," White Bone replied. "It's hard to ignite, but once it catches, it burns for a particularly long time."

Hard to ignite?

With the boiler's high combustion temperature and high-pressure air supply, even metal would have to think twice about its ignition point, let alone mere wood.

So the reason the machinery was overloaded was that the ironwood's heating value was much higher than expected, and Su Ming had set the boiler's fuel feed incorrectly!

He was just about to reduce the fuel when a faint mosquito-like hum sounded through the boiler and engine rooms. The magic gems installed on the power unit began to shine, activating sets of protective magic arrays. Parts that had warped slightly under the enormous pressure and high-speed operation suddenly gained support and returned to their original shapes.

The engine room grew quiet, its vibrations and noise abruptly diminishing.

Then the propeller sped up again, and the needle on the speedometer began climbing toward its upper limit.

These were the protective arrays White Bone had placed on the power unit. They had originally been worried that the machinery would be damaged when the White Bone Fortress went over the sea cliff and hit the water. But the cushioning structure Su Ming had built was so effective that the arrays had never been triggered-until now.

"Eighteen and a half knots!" Su Ming quickly adjusted the machine's settings as he told White Bone, "You might not need to use magic power to speed up the ship anymore."

Enemy Ship No. 3, in another direction, had its firing angle blocked by Ship No. 1 and had chosen to accelerate parallel to the Zhiyuan. It had originally intended to prepare for a pursuit, but discovered that in the current sea conditions, it couldn't catch the Zhiyuan even at its top speed.

"There's something I have to tell you," White Bone said. "I don't actually have any strength to spare to speed up the Zhiyuan. It's hard to say whether I can even hold off the Temple of Light's bishops when they get here."

"Then what was your original plan?" Su Ming asked.

"I was going to overdraw my reserves and squeeze out a burst of power," White Bone replied. "But that would actually damage the White Bone Fortress." As she spoke, she remotely fine-tuned the arrays on the power unit, adding protective spells to several places that were still making noise. "Now it looks like the cost would outweigh the benefit. Keeping the Zhiyuan in good condition is more worthwhile!"

Su Ming said he understood. He glanced at the Pearl Duchy's Ship No. 2 in puzzlement. After its second volley of magic ice spears missed, it had gone completely silent. It made no sense.

By rights, its guns should have been ready by now. The Zhiyuan was well within its optimal range, so it should have attacked with everything it had.

Aboard Ship No. 2, the gunnery officer stared in bewilderment at the slide rule and firing tables in his hands, which only went up to 17.9 knots. Their commander had finally accepted that the target's speed had surpassed the limit of their own warships in peak condition, despite having no magic power fluctuations and no sails.

He and the commanders of Ships No. 1 and No. 3 fired blue signal flares one after another, indicating that they were no longer able to intervene in the battle.

A few minutes later, the Zhiyuan had crossed the Pearl Duchy Navy's interception line. It adjusted course and headed for the open sea.

Its speed reached nineteen knots. Su Ming had finally adjusted all the factors, and the ship was sailing swiftly and steadily-even more steadily than the Pearl Duchy Navy's warships sitting in place amid the storm.

Several figures appeared in the sky, rapidly approaching beneath thin curtains of light that shielded them from the rain. Behind them, a group of others could dimly be seen.

White Bone stretched out a hand, and several blue magic spheres shot toward the rear. The group hurriedly dodged.

As the magic spheres passed the pursuers, they suddenly exploded one after another, freezing the rain around them and scattering it in all directions.

"Ice Wind Hail: Proximity Burst!"

One pursuer was accidentally struck and immediately slowed down. By the time he recovered, he had been left far behind.

Amid the wind and rain, White Bone followed up by deploying an area detection spell. Pale yellow magic power quickly spread in all directions, marking each of the pursuers behind them with a faint glow.

"Sixteen, seventeen!" White Bone had already cast Eagle Eye on her eyes, and the corner of her mouth twitched.

Not just any Tom, Dick, or Harry could catch up to them.

Normally, temple priests could fly at twenty-five knots, high-ranking priests at thirty, and bishops at thirty-five. At full burst, they could go even faster.

But in the air, attacking with spells inevitably slowed them down, as did dodging and raising shields. And with the rain pouring down, the temple's spellcasters had to maintain stronger shields.

On top of that, this was a sea battle, so anyone who dared give chase also had to consider how long they could keep it up. In practice, only those with the strength of a high-ranking priest or above had any reason to pursue.

"One archbishop, four bishops, twelve high priests." White Bone's resentment was almost tangible. "Has the Temple of Light gotten this idle? That's enough to empty out at least one provincial branch!"

"...What level are you roughly equivalent to?" Su Ming asked. He wasn't very familiar with this world's professions and power system.