“Well, we can get the ships up into the air. The fleets should fo- cus on breaking apart the islands as much as possible with cannon fire. Then we drop a Guardian force onto the islands. We carve a mas- sive Guardian Flame formation into that bad boy. It will take time to make the formation and then time for it to activate.”
“What about the fire formations? Couldn’t we use those in- stead of dropping people on the islands?” Raye asked.
“The flames that we use in cities and villages aren’t strong to start. Think of them more like a spark—then the power in the area sup-
plies it with the strength to be as powerful as they are. With this, we need a Guardian Flame that will go in and cleanse the Drafeng chaot- ic power and reverse it. If we can burn out their power, then...” Claire made a diving motion with her hand.
“Boom, pssht, ahhh!” Anthony added in sound effects. “Wasn’t totally necessary,” Claire said.
“Better with sound effects.” Anthony shrugged, looking for sup- port in the room and finding none.
“Okay, well, a lot of sparks can make a flame,” Axion said.
“It might and I’m not discounting that. We will try it, but with this kind of power density that you weren’t able to see them... Think of the chaotic power within the Drafeng like kindling—eas- ily ignit- ed. This power is much denser. So, think of trying to start a fire with having a big tree in front of you and you’re hoping that one of the sparks that you are throwing at it will cause it to go up in flames.”
“How long will it take to work on the ships?”
“Shouldn’t take more than a day. Thankfully, with the mages aboard, we don’t need the prettiest or best enchantments, just some- thing that will work. And the rest of it is pushing a ton of power into the enchantments to get up and going.”
Chapter: Flying Fleet
Claire was able to come up with the necessary enchantments that would raise the ships into the air, hooking it up to the controls that were on the ship. The rudder and such were harder. Once she had one set complete, then the mages and the craftsmen on the ships set to work, carving out the enchantments on the other ships. They were still moving toward the west while under sail.
Among the fleet, there were a number of merchant supply ships that were part of the island’s merchant navy. To get to the island, the Guardians needed a number of large ships that could take a lot of people and that wouldn’t be missed if they were destroyed. The fleet all had cannons on them, making them valuable, while three sacrifi- cial ships were released to the Guardians to retrofit as they needed into their attack craft.
“Captain Lothir,” Anthony said as he stepped aboard the ship
Hubberston.
“Guardian Anthony,” the shark kin man said with a wide smile. “How have you been?”
“Have been better. But I am told that you are taking the Hub- ber- ston.” Lothir held his captain’s hat, wringing it.
“I thought that they were giving us the worst ships. Don’t they know the power of the Hubberston?” Anthony said.
“No finer merchant ship out there. She might not be much to look at but she is reliable. Taken me from port to port, weathered many a storm, and we even outraced that elemental in it, didn’t we?” He laughed and looked at his hat. He shook it out and then
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passed it to Anthony. “With you at the helm for one last time, I know that she’d be happy.”
Anthony took the captain’s hat with reverence. “I won’t let you down.”
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Lothir nodded and then headed down the side of the boat to the rowing boat that would take him to one of the other merchant ships. Supplies and items were shifted to the smaller boats. They wouldn’t need any of that on their trip. The lighter, the better.
***
Admiral Raye thought that the plan was downright crazy. Ballsy? It was insane. Though there was a part of him—maybe it was that young boy curiosity or the sense of adventure that sailors held dear—that loved it.
They were cruising across the water. The wind was with them; it was a clear day.
He saw the mages pouring power into the tester ship’s enchant- ments. They glowed brighter, coming alive with power.
It started to raise in the water. The waterline and the barnacle- covered bottom of the ship started to rise out of the water. With the loss of water, the speed of the ship climbed and it started to move faster with the wind. The helmsman guided the ship back and forth, tacking with the wind. Then, using the magical power systems, the ship nearly tripled its speed.
Raye’s eyes went wide; he gripped the side of the flagship with a wide smile on his face. Damn! I want to fly on one of those!
Testing complete, the rest of the fleet started to power up their enchantments. The merchant fleet would continue to Cheon to hand off supplies and await further orders.
They bore witness to First and Third Fleet as they rose up out of the water.
Raye held onto the rigging as the flagship rose above the water, increasing its speed. The spray of saltwater reaching his unmoving figure.
He took a deep breath tasting the salt as the navy charged for- ward.
“Captain Devra, alter yer heading one fifty degrees. Run out her full sails. Let’s see what we’re capable of !” Raye yelled.
“Aye, Admiral!” Captain Devra said from the helm. He had tak- en over personally, using the power of rank to be able to fly the behe- moth.
The colors went up and signals were passed. The ships in the fleet turned their rudders and the enchantments worked overtime. The mages powered it all, switching out frequently. There were so many of them that they didn’t grow tired with regular rest.
The three Guardian vessels rose from the water. They were in large merchant vessels. They looked ungainly. The leading ship was covered in light, as wings of golden scales and red fire spread out from the ship.
With a phoenix and dragon roar that made one’s soul tremble, the ship’s wings flapped. Working with the magical formations, it took to the skies.
It was the worst-looking of the merchant ships but at that mo- ment, she was a phoenix given a new life.
Water dripped from their hulls, revealing their barnacled and worn hulls.
The three Guardian ships were covered in purple Guardian Flames. Each of the ships were more dominating than the fleet’s Man-O-Wars.
The two fleets and Guardian squadron forged onward and up- ward, cutting one hell of a sight in the skies.
***
Khurok looked at the sea as it passed below. The sea had been an im- passable barrier to the Drafeng. If they had ships, they could have crossed but their planet had long been turned to dust and rocks. Those practices had been lost in the past.
“Leader, a fleet of ships has been spotted on the horizon,” Oru said.
“They are below us. If they come into range, then I am interest- ed to see the power of our new beam weapons.”
“They aren’t on the water below—they are flying through the clouds,” Oru said.
“What?” Khurok was confused and Aeran looked over as well.
Oru indicated in a direction.
Khurok looked where he was pointing and used the chaotic pow- er within his body to enhance his sight so that he could see what Oru was indicating. There, among the clouds, there was in- deed a fleet of small dots that were carving through the clouds.
“How is this possible? What fleet is that?”
“It is the First and Third Fleet that went to the east. They were not supposed to return for a number of days,” Oru said.
“They must have got word about our departure. They are look- ing to intercept us before we reach Cresmond Peak. As soon as they get into our range, hit them with beam weapons! Even with their ships, they will not be able to stop us,” Khurok said.
He stopped and looked at one of the ships. It was the worst ship in the fleet, but it had wings on its side and he felt a sense of danger from it. “What is that?”
“I...I’m not sure, but those look like phoenix wings, or dragon wings,” Oru said.
“Guardian Anthony.” Khurok’s words sent a tremor through the Drafeng around him as they all focused on the strange ship.
***
“Dragon-phoenix ship, baby!” Anthony said as he flew the Hub- ber- ston, his captain’s hat off at an angle as he looked at the three large crystal structures floating through the air.
Claire just sighed. Tommie tinkered with his Gnominator. A game of cards was going on the main deck. Aila was strapped to the back of the ship again.
“Seasick and air sick, you should look into that!” An- thony said. She replied with retching.
Tairlyn snorted and coughed before patting Aila’s back. “Come on, Commander. Got to pull it together now. Don’t want the other Guardians seeing you like this, right?”
Troga retched beside her.
“Shut up, you big ox. You don’t even have a stomach anymore!” Tairlyn bellowed.
“I hate flying! Why did you tie me to the back of the ship? You know how I hate heights and I’m only looking down! If you hate heights, you’re not supposed to look down.”
Claire hit him on the back of the head with her hand, making a solid noise. “Some of us are working here.”
Troga retched again and Aila did as well. The two of them shared a suffering glance. Comrades in pain.
“Are we—”
“I will turn this boat around if you ask if we’re there yet again, Damien!” Anthony yelled up into the rigging, where Damien was in the crow’s nest.
“I’m so bored!”
“How did you survive for centuries down in that crypt in Ilsal?” “He would go around pranking people all the time—called him
the prank knight of Ilsal.” Claire didn’t look up from her book on formations and wrote down something on paper. “You think this will work?”
She passed the paper to Tommie, who took a look at it. “With all of the Guardians here, why don’t we have them act as
the ignition for the enchantment? That way, you don’t have to wor- ry
about replicating the Guardian power, which seems to be the most complicated part.”
“Makes sense.” Claire went back to reading and drawing out en- chantments.
“H-hey, I helped people out too!” Damien complained from the crow’s nest.
“People called him the deity of misfortune. He did it for cen- turies, thought that I didn’t notice it all until a few decades ago. I was the one who had to cover up the big lumbering man in armor who was seen sneaking around, laughing and giggling like some
little kid.”
Damien let out a sigh, his arms over the side of the crow’s nest as he rested his head at the top of the wooden railing. “It was fun- ny,” he muttered. “So musty and boring in the caves...plots and plans here, training there, managing kingdoms.”
“What about this?” Claire ignored him and passed another en- chantment to Tommie.
“Should work. If you were to change this...” Tommie pulled out a pencil from behind his ear and altered the plans. “That should make it activate faster.”
“I’m going to play cards. Smells a bit back here. Let me know when we get there.” Tairlyn headed down to the game that had just finished.
“I’m flying on a dragon-phoenix boat, a dragon-phoenix boat.” Anthony seemed to miss everything else, being the captain of his own ship, his face pulled back into a terrifying smile.
Used to his strange ways, the others didn’t seem to mind him, go- ing about their own work.
He kept on talking about the dragon-phoenix boat under his breath, humming and laughing to himself.
Chapter: First Battle of Its Kind
Since the idea of flying ships had been brought up, Admiral Raye had spent the days working with the different captains and the peo- ple working the helm, to see what kind of tactics and strategies they could come up with to attack the platforms and do the most dam- age while protecting themselves from the enemy attacks.
Now it would come time to test out whether they worked or not. He had come up with the rotating barrel formation. The two fleets would spread out, creating a cylinder in the air. The cylinder would rotate in the air, with ships dropping down on one side, then gliding over to the side, rising back up and circling around. This way, one force was defending the other, taking hits from the Drafeng hit- ting them with their cannons and then rotating out of the line of fire. They found that it was harder to turn their ships and go against the wind but if they reduced their speed, it was possible. If they cut all of their sails, then they could turn their
ships in the air so that they could rest their cannons at different times.
It was based off the formation that they had used when they had established the beachhead on Cheon. Now they would just be using it in the skies above Dena.
When firing their cannons, the mages needed to spend more power to course correct, but with testing, the mages and the helms people had gotten good at working together to control where the ships were supposed to be going.
“All right then, let’s do this,” Admiral Raye said. “Send up the sig- nal.”
They weren’t far from the platforms now. They could see the dif- ferent towers and the mounds that were formed from crystal and stone.
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Behind the ship, thick streamers of potent chaotic power were released from the conversion towers. Most of it was taken in by the
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Drafeng and the chaotic beasts, but there was just so much be- ing converted that it was leaving a thick fog behind the platform.
The ships moved into formation. They cut their sails and rolled out their cannons. They started to rotate slowly, getting used to it. They had done several drills in the past day.
Behind the rotating formation of the two fleets, there were the three Guardian ships. Admiral Raye looked over to them. It was his job to distract and do as much damage as possible; it would be up to those three ships to bring down the Drafeng platforms.
“Good luck,” Admiral Raye said into the wind and then looked at the target.
“Sails are stowed. Guns have been run out,” the signal officer re- ported.
“Very good. Then I guess we should start blasting these bas- tards back the way they came from. Signal the fleet to increase their speed and go off the flagship.”
Colors were run out again. The fleet increased their speed.
Chaotic Beams cut over the rough seas, creating trenches where they passed.
The mages were all ready. Mana barriers snapped into existence. Beams missed the fleet here and there, hitting the air; others paint- ed the mana barriers and lit up the faces of the ship crews.
“Well, now I know the purpose of those odd-looking crystals. They’re cannons,” Raye muttered as he held onto the rigging.
“Steady!” Captain Devra said.
Admiral Raye watched the battlefield as if he wasn’t a part of it, looking for the advantages and adjusting his plan accordingly. “Tar- get those beam towers. Have half of the ships using Guardian puri- fi- cation rounds.”
The signal officer organized the flags and the signals went up.
Raye watched the platform. He didn’t need a ranger to know when they were in firing distance. “Fire!”
The flagship’s cannons fired. The rest of the fleet, hearing their guns, fired their own. The formation shifted but those at the helm and the supporting mages corrected their positioning and they con- tinued to rotate. New ships fired as they got a clear line of fire; new mages took over, creating mana barriers to protect against the beam weapons.
The first volley was wild. With the ships moving, their shots were all over the place.
The second volley was better, taking out a number of the beam towers.
The Drafeng islands were all at the same height, making it so that they couldn’t fire over one another.
“The other platforms are trying to go around on either side a
nd are going lower so that their towers can hit us from underneath!” someone yelled from the crow’s nest.
I hate dealing with a smart enemy.
“How fast are they moving?”
“Slowly. Should take them twenty or thirty minutes or so to complete the movement. Their momentum is too high to counter- act quickly.”
Beams cut through the air and struck a ship. The mana barriers snapped up, but there were tens of the beams. A Guardian shield snapped over the ship and blunted the attack. Another ship was hit with multiple beams; it activated its Guardian barrier, sucking up the mana in the area around it.
“They’re focusing their attacks—increase the rotation speed of the formation!” Raye said.
The third valley took out more beam towers that crumbled, falling on the other buildings below and crushing them.
War raged in the skies. Above the seas, beams lanced out from the Drafeng platforms, striking the mana barriers that were thrown up to defend the fleet.
Cannon crews were quickly covered in black smoke and dust. They reloaded, aimed, and fired, the ships rolling with each bar-
rage.
As they rotated out of the front lines, the mages would drink the expensive mana recovery potions as if they were water, recover- ing quickly for the next round.
“They’re heading in,” a watcher said.
Raye looked over the three beaten-up merchant ships that had been hiding on the other side of the formation. Now they dropped below the formation, below the islands. Their enchantments blazed with power and the dragon-phoenix boat flapped its wings, taking up the forward position and leading the charge.
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