Upper deck, the HMS-Infinity.

 

In response to the galleon’s boarding action, those who were nearest to the port wasted no time pointing their weapon at the climbing goblins. These short, green, humanoid creatures were fast on the rope. Thankfully, they were slower than monkeys. The projectiles dropped goblins with no difficulty. The goblins and goblin lords on the sail ship aimed their spear and arrows at their comrade’s killers but none hit the mark. Some sailors tried to pry the hooks out, others attempted to cut off the ropes with machetes or the axeblade on their rifle. The ropes were weighed down by the goblins under, prying the claws off were difficult. Each rope can support 20-30 goblins and they are not made of material that can easily be cut. It was this time the runeship begun moving.

 

The Infinity was having its bow at the coming fleet. A full turn to starboard strained the ropes and pulled the galleon below with it. The galleon was rammed against the orichalcum armor crying the sound of its broken hull. Collision pushed the ships away before the ropes pull them together again. The poor ship was smashed two more times before the ropes were all snapped.

 

It was at this time the 9 ships that were set ablaze by the Emerllia’s Thermal Lance went off violently in fiery explosion one by one. A phenomenon that puzzled most of the dwarves and elves. Dimithil had called for an explanation to which no one had a solid answer. Unbeknown to them, the new world’s magic cannon utilizes crushed explosive magic gems as replacement for gunpowder to propel shells at the target. These magic gems are highly combustible and as the fire reached the magic gem storage within the lower decks, the ships turned into fireworks. The elves, dwarves and every civilization back in their old world do not have magic gems such as those nor do they use gun powder.

 

In their early history of weapon designing, gunpowder did make an appearance but turning a warship into dynamite was thought to be counterintuitive. Moreover, magical technology, which boasts much greater output, does not turn ammunition into combustibles. For example, shells and reactors of their ships do not explode under physical stress such as pressure or heat.

 

Their shells only explode when condition, which was programed as part of the enchantments on the shells, is satisfied such as “reaching within this proximity of this specific target” and even these enchantments are not waiting there to be triggered. These enchantments only get ready to “explode upon reaching the target” after they went through the activator part of their delivery system. This activation is also a heavily encrypted enchantment protocol to assure no mage can just walk into their ammunition stockpile and turn it into a wasteland. In short, shells of their world are no different from half-almond-shape objects with written symbols. The magic reactors are rows of enchantments on and in weird artifacts. Their battery which stored magic currency is also not an explosive. Most magic currency is not energy except for Endura system’s currency where stamina is something but even that is under heavy debate. Scholars of their world suggested that Endura is just a special system that does not use magic currency but a physical property (stamina) to activate its magic. The general consensus defined magic currency as something that does not interact with the physical world. They are only there to be consumed to trigger a magic.

 

None of their equipment or items stored energy that if you release these energies a massive disturbance such as an explosion will happen. To their magical technology, energy is only released when magics are functioning as they should be. If reactors or batteries or shells are damaged, there is no energy output, a complete contradiction to what Teroku people or a native of the new world would know. Just as the chimera (Ollando-Lyseek’thy-Xantos) had said magic is a phenomenon that violates the laws of physics (Chapter 1). To interpret, from nothing magic creates something and if the phenomenon is disrupted then nothing is created.

 

Some speculations and exchanges between the two ships concluded that the sail ships had something like gunpowder stockpile though they admitted they had no idea why a ship that used magic to attack had gunpowder since they would never have guessed the new world’s magic currency, magical power, can easily interact with the physical world without magic.

 

On deck, the Deckmaster successfully pushed the ogre into a clear zone. With the firing rate of 200 bullets per minute, the ogre took more than a hundred bullets per second from the crews forcing it to protect its face and chest. Only some bullets grazed its green skin, those with bad angle bounced off with no visible damage. Those shallow wounds healed instantly due to the abundance of mana within his body. There were occasionally arrows and bolts come flying. Among the stream of projectiles, only the bolts dealt the most damage. Weigh 75 g and move at 180 m/s. Their muzzle energy is 1222.5 J and with the 1.8 multiplier from force boost it is 2200 J per bolt. For comparison, the AK’s bullets only have 2056 J but even these bolts barely scratched the thick skin. Some dwarves switched from automatic to semi-auto mode but these 3193-joules bullets also failed to pierce the ogre. The attacks from the Infinity’s crew were less of lethal forces and more of a loud annoyance for the ogre. Borag shook his head before the futility of their weapons then ran inside.

 

For your information, the dwarven rifle is different from our modern firearms. First of all, they do not use cartridge or caseless ammunition but only bullet. This advantage means each clip carries more bullet in comparison to ours of the same size.

 

They do have a disadvantage which is the second difference. They have rifle battery that they need to frequently reload beside ammunition. This battery is filled with Colos and it is the part that provide the necessary to project the bullet at the target.

 

This leads to the last point which is the mechanism that sends bullet out of the barrel. Our conventional firearms use gunpowder or other chemical explosives as propellant to cause a chemical explosion which send the bullet flying. This dwarven rifle has a part that keeps the bullet in place until adequate pressure was built up. When the trigger is pulled, Colora magic raises internal pressure and causes a mechanical explosion, the type of explosion that produce no heat or light, to propel the bullet.

 

How much pressure is built and the subsequent muzzle energy of the bullet can be easily set by the user. The minimum muzzle energy of the bullet is when the rifle under automatic mode which is 501 J. However, in semi-auto mode each shot can be charged up to a second for 3193 J.

 

The situation of the upper deck settled into a fragile deadlock. The crew kept the suppressive fire going. Despite being trained militants, they don’t meet this powerful foe often and especially not this close. Eight people have died because of this ogre alone. They knew if they spare a single moment more will die.

 

Under heavy fire, the ogre was getting less confident. It stepped back slowly to the edge. Through the space between its fingers, it caught sight of a new group of dwarves bringing with them a large cylinder-like object. This item is half as wide as a human and as long as a dwarf is tall. The inferiors took sidesteps to clear a way for the item. Around 4 or 5 dwarves shouldered the cylinder and point an opened end at the ogre. Feeling an ill foreboding, its legs quickly made a run to the ocean.

 

A loud noise sounded behind its back. While still floating on the air, it tried to turn around just to see a round-shape object chasing it. When the cannonball thing was a meter away from it, a powerful explosion blasted off its arms and skinned its upper body. Its body fell to the water. Guts exposed to the sea. Immense pain assaulted its body but it can’t scream. Its mouth was gone and so was half of its throat. The creature shook in pain as its magical power tried to fix up the hideous wounds. It suffered a total 18 ribs broken, severe internal organ damage, losing skin from its belly up to its face, muscle fibers flailed like broken doll’s strings and only the arm bones are what left of its upper limbs.

 

The galleon tried to recover its commander’s body was stroke with lightnings from the runeship. At the 8th strike, the lightning hit the ship ammunition turning it into a deadly firework. The Thunderclap 300 system (TC-G8 300) has completed its job in the awe of Teroku soldiers and the less-than-satisfied expression of the bridge.

 

“What’s wrong?” Paul asked a random sailor in the bridge who happened to be an engineer.

“The TC-G8 is the one that is affected the most due to the transference. We did our best to re-design it from Uniformis to Colora but that is the job of the shipyard with precise machinery and expert knowledge from the master engineers. At the moment, it can only operate at a thousandth of what it is truly capable of. You see. We hit the little ship with the TG-G8 300 which normally produces the power of 300 lightning strikes per second, but it stroke with 300 000 000 J, a fraction of what it should do. That little ship probably wasn’t going down with 50 strikes like those, we just got lucky and hit its explosives.”

 

Paul’s mind went blank for second.

 

“Oh well, the Thunderclap is just projectile-intercepting system and anti-air weapon. We used it on that ship because they are explosion dead traps. It hit the explosives just as we expected. Ha ha. No reason to waste the precious shells then.”

 

The communication officer turned a little pale. He swallowed his own saliva in quiet to quench the dryness in his throat. He remembered the specs of the runeship in the report. Apparently, there are 2 more TC-G8 systems, the TC-G8 50 and if the TC-G8 300 can produce 300 lightnings each second, the ‘50’ means these two systems have the firepower of 50 lightning bolts each. More than that these are just anti-air weapons so there must be even more destructive weapons against heavily armored ships and he recalled there are many listed items behind the Thunderclap system.

 

If this ship is sailing in his old world, alone it could sink thousands ships of the great powers. Its primal reactor as the shipmaster described the other day can assure the ship is functional for eternity. Whoever has this ship will rule the entire world. Just as a great man once said “if our ancestors from the primitive age of non-magic look at us, they will see gods”. We as a civilization have walked a long way to reach today but they, the elves, the dwarves, they have walked even further than us. We are seeing gods in mortal form. Paul would save these thoughts for the report that night.

 

On the deck, the 4 dwarves that held the artifact were lying on their back. Borag’s hands were on his knees. His breathing was heavy, sweats built up from his entire body. The deckmaster called for medics before approaching the shipmaster.

 

“So. A failure!”

“Yeah...” Borag was still catching his breath. “The… shell… was faulty… it exploded before hitting… the target… Colora explosion… too weak… Endura… to propel the shell… the homing… the structure… reinforcement… too… cost inefficiency…”

 

The same as their machinery, dwarven personnel equipment utilize the most common magic of their world, the Uniformis. Unlike Colora, where the caster only has a limited amount of Colos in their body and surrounding environment, the Uni, or Uniformis’ currency, is always at a fixed concentration regardless how many magics were casted. When transferred to a world without Uni, Uniformis-based equipment turned to junks. They do have some Colora-based rifles but that’s it.

 

Being craftsmen themselves, the crew determined to make their own weapons. Going back to historical designs taught in their engineer school, they re-created an Endura-based personnel cannon. Deviated from the original, their cannon used their self-made Colora-explosion-enchantment shell instead of solid cannonball. For the first live test, most of the speculations were on point. Some of the issues were identified such as the flaws in Colora formula for the shell which resulted in its premature explosion or how the explosion was too weak to vaporize the ogre. Tactical-level problems were also revealed as the weapons take 5-person worth of stamina to attack once and requires at least 4 people to carry. This would later be noted by the crew to develop their improved version.

==================================

Bridge of the Emerllia.

 

“Sir. It seems the Infinity has expelled the hostiles on board.” An officer notified Dimithil.

“Good.”

“Configuration is complete.” Emerllia contacted Dimithil telepathically.

“Fire whenever you can.”

==================================

It was much longer than expected. Casting the same Plasma Torpedo spells on 3 different systems surely is something Emerllia isn’t accustomed with. Three large stalks quickly rose from the highest structure of the Emerllia. The flowers on top of the stalks underwent instant maturity and produced 3 maize ears. One of the ear radiated green light. After 5 seconds, 20 kernels from each ear shot up to the sky at the speed of sound. They stopped at 98 m for a brief moment before turning into yellow lights piercing 60 ships below.

 

The width of these light was noticeably much narrower than the Solar Lances yet the light dug deep into those ships. The decks turned to dust in an instant. The bottom hull while still haven’t been breached turned to charcoal. Not a single soul on those ships understood what happened to them or those around them. Many died like soap bubbles popped in thin air. Ships that had its ammunition ignited scattered its crew and debris across the sea. Those less unfortunate were starting to burn like paper lamps. The humans, the orcs and the goblins were petrified. In just an instant, approximately 8000 goblins, 900 goblin lords and 250 orcs have gone. Sixty ships were destroyed. Arbitrary power claimed so many lives as easy as blowing candles.

 

Screams.

Screams.

There were screams.

 

The goblins were low-intelligent creatures but not foolish enough to be ignorant of what happened. The bigger goblin lords and even the orcs serving as commanders of those remaining ships were shaking non-stop. Only the most senior of the orcs were able to keep rational thinking. They strangled the nearest screaming throat, shouted out command for a retreat. It took a little while but order finally went through the feeble minds.

==================================

Bridge of the Emerllia.

 

“Analysis complete. The means are very similar, sir. Be it primal magic, Endura system or Colora, their anti-magic enchantments reduced the power of the Plasma Torpedo by 20-30%.”

“Share our result with the Infinity and prepare a report for the three masters and madam Feron ASAP.”

 

The Solar Lance is one of the many spells belong to the Thermal Lance spell family. Its formula shared a root back to the Thermal Lance. As for their function, the Thermal Lance produces the same intense light that burn anything in front of it similar to its descended spell, Solar Lance, but while the intense light of Thermal Lance is magical effect, the light of the Solar Lance is real light, a physical thing.

 

The Plasma Torpedo is also a descended spell of Thermal Lance but instead of shooting out a direct light, it sent out orbs of light in the shape of kernels in the first stage. The second stage begun when the orbs reached the set altitude. The orbs turned into a light that pierced the registered targets. A spell that required planning and massive mental power to register all the targets but can attack multiple targets at the same time. These lights are the same as the original Thermal Lance in being magical effect and can be interfered by anti-magic effect.

 

Witnessing the Thermal Lance in action, John could only whisper to the frustration of the FAO’s senior.

“It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?”

“It’s gone, sir. Half of the hostile fleet is gone.”

“What do you mean gone? There were 120 ships. How can 60 ships have gone? What weapon did they use? How did it happen? Answer me.”

“They used a weapon that made light. Orbs of light shot up to the sky then hit the ships. All of them hit. All of them were hit in an instant. They are gone. Either they exploded or burned and then exploded.”

“Officer John. What do you mean ‘all of them hit’?” Chancellor Henson asked.

“They hit. They hit, chancellor. They all hit. There is no miss.”

 

“Dimithil. Flyers! 200 and counting.” Emerllia alerted.

“Zoom in for me.”

 

The screen showed a close-up to an enemy flyer. It was a small dragon-like creature without legs being ridden by a goblin. This creature is an amphiptere, a failed creation of the Mage Empire in creating an easy-to-mass-produce bioweapon using the wyvern as template. It is quite small around 4 to 5 m in length but is just as ferocious and deadly as a normal wyvern. Lacking limbs resulted in its lower body mass and, therefore, less food to feed. The orcs on the remaining ships decided to turn tail but they did not believe their enemies would let them leave quietly. They forced some unlucky goblins to mount these creatures which they call ‘fouler’ to act as distraction. There are 280 amphipteres on the 40 ships on the back of the fleet. The green ogre’s arrangement ensured none of them was killed or revealed during the assault of the 70 ships in front.

 

“Their ships are leaving, sir.”

“I suppose we can let them lead us to their nest. Target them with the Tracker seeds. In the meantime, raise our shield and project one to the Infinity. Emerllia, configure the Thermal Lance to Solar Array.”

==================================

Upper Deck, HMS-Infinity.

 

“Raise our shield. Get the Thunderclap at 50 for each target. 24 mm, intercept anything that goes through the shield.” Borag finished his order for the bridge. “All of you. Weapon to the air. I don’t think they can get through even in this state but just in case, ready to fire.”

==================================

The legless creatures were fast on their wings at 190 km/h and even had a head start when commands were being issued by the shipmasters. It still took the ones in front 60 seconds to get in range. The 3 Thunderclap systems took their leisure reducing the foulers’ number. The 2 smaller systems only shoot once every second under the 50 000 000-J setting but the 300 system had no issue sent out 6 lightnings to its targets accurately.

 

After their number went down to 200, the Solar Array started firing. Another stalk had risen from the top of the groveship and grown a large garlic inflorescence. Each floret in the inflorescence emitted a ray of yellow light. Being magical effect, all 160 lights turned sharply in midair to the flyers. While not as fast as real light, those yellow lights were definitely in the supersonic. Only a finger-wide but the light was concentrated and burnt through the fouler and its rider with no issues.

 

Many scattered but any effort to escape the lights were futile. One after another they were chased down and met their demise. Seeing too many have fallen preys to the light and lightning, the remaining lost their will to fight. They yanked the harness to pull away from the death zone but it was too late. The moment those goblins rode near the two ships, they sealed their fate. The Thunderclap system got the honor of zapping the last fouler from the sky. Two hundred and eighty amphipteres, not a single got in range to attack.

 

Terrified by the one-side slaughter, the orcs yelled to its subordinates to hasten the retreat. Suddenly around 10 ships in the back shook but there was nothing followed up. The ships’ Tear of the Wind God was at max capacity, its speed won’t go faster than 12 knots but the monsters on board surely were much quicker with their hands after that shaking.

 

The Trackers were in place. Enemies were running away. Those that were left behind were hiding under the larger debris but since they had no fighting will, they were left as they were, beside there is a more important matter. The first armed conflict in the new world came to an end. The groveship joined the runeship in search for the body of the two Teroku soldiers that were killed by the orcs during combat.

 

After an hour, 10 crew members were laid to rest on the deck of the HMS-Infinity. Three dwarves and seven humans lost their life in the last battle. Six other people were injured by the ogre. Three black-hood figures and 2 more from the Emerllia approached the misfortunate. With utmost care, they wrapped each body in white sheet with strange symbols on them before covered their body up to their neck in their nation’s flag. The crew of both ships took turn to pay tribute in silence. By the mid-day, the two ships were on journey return to the west.

==================================

It was not until sunset that the orcs dared to return to the slaughter field. They have managed to bring on board many survivors and the sole reason they returned, green ogre. It was still alive. Its regeneration did magnificent job but it still can’t speak or move. The entire time it was floating on the sea recalling all the events that happened.

 

The black ogre, somehow, found a large group of abandoned warships on an island strait. These ships are similar in specs to the ships that they discovered months ago and used to reach the hidden research island of their creators, the mages. There seems to be someone or force wanting to aid them. For what reason these people stayed hidden they did not know. They did not care anyway. They have a purpose and they will do anything to reach their goal which is to scour the world of the inferiors and welcome the return of their masters. Demon Lord Nosgorath then divided these ships to them, the ogres, 70 to each one.

 

On the research island, they have also discovered a large number of amphiptere which their masters dubbed “fouler” along with a large cloning facility. His lordship Nosgorath needed more sacrifices. A larger army can attack larger settlements of the lesser races, as a result each ogre was given a larger army. Before setting out to the West, green ogre had in his command a fleet of 120 galleons carrying 16000 goblins, 2000 goblin lords, 800 orcs and 280 foulers. These numbers are enough to attack a mid-size kingdom and he expected to bring back at least 5000 slaves.

 

It was not long after his departure that the fleet met these 2 weird ships. No matter. It was just two of them, he would sink the ships and captured their crew as slaves.

 

“To the approaching ships. This is the HMS-Infinity accompanied by the Emerllia. We are delegated by the Independent State of Teroku to...”

 

Loud voice like thunder reached even there although they were 8-km away. What are these ships talking about? The green ogre thought. They don’t understand what is going to happen to them?

 

“To the approaching ships. We come without ill-will. What we want is to establish diplomatic relation with your ruling organization. Please respond.”

 

The loud voice spoke again. Diplomatic? Normally if the inferiors saw our ships they will either attack or run away. Are these creatures so stupid they want to bargain with us?

 

“To the approaching ships. If you do not respond, we will take it that you have hostile intention and proceed to engage in combat. You have been warned.”

 

They sure are persistent but thank to that we are close to them. Now they can’t run away. Wait a second! They were talking something about friend. Are they also servants of our masters, the mages? No. If there are, his majesty must have warned me about them. Then again, there are also the mystery about these ships being left there for us to take. Could it be... this is it? They have finally decided to meet us?

 

“To the two strange ships. This is the fleet of his majesty Nosgorath. You have trespassed his majesty’s water. Prepare your ship for on board inspection!”

 

His majesty Nosgorath does not have a kingdom or anything like that but he will soon turn the world of the inferiors to dust. This sea and the land faraway can be considered his. That asides this should let them know who they are dealing with.

 

“To the commander of the fleet. I afraid we can not allow you to inspect our vessels. You can still come on board and discuss diplomacy with us but please keep your group to ten people or less.”

 

No reaction. Do they truly have no idea who his majesty, the Demon Lord Nosgorath, is? Being a servant of the Mage Empire, his majesty’s name should have been etched in the mind of every intelligent being on this planet. He, the punisher, who put the lower life-forms to their place beneath our master’s feet. If they do not know about his lordship then who are they? What do they want approaching my fleet?

 

They didn’t attack and even went to great length just to get a response. They must have wanted to speak. On second thought, it doesn’t matter what they really want. I will play with them making them think I am from a kingdom and they are intruding my lord territory. This acting can still be continued. Let just go with the flow. If they are not our allies or servants, we can kill them all. Me and 9 orcs should be more than enough to handle them. Whatever will happen there is nothing to worry.

 

Large. No. It’s huge. It’s the largest ship I have ever seen. It was also made of metal. It must be tremendously heavy. Green ogre mumbled to itself while the crane pulled the platform up to the upper deck. It was a good thing we were invited to this ship. The other ship is made of wood our cannons can win but not this one, this one can only be captured by boarding. It seems we have luck on our side.

 

Dwarves and Humans? What could they want?

 

Summoned? Are they perhaps the same as those treacherous servants of the Sun God that’ve defeated another incarnation of Lord Nosgorath? No. If they are the same, they would have attacked us already. They must be a different group summoned by the very same accursed Sun God. Fortune be with me, I can destroy them before they grow too strong.

 

…

I am still alive? This is? The water? My arms. My face. My voice.

Debris?

Goblins?

Orcs?

My fleet?

…

…

…

Without causing any significant damage to the enemy, they suffered a loss of 10000 goblins, 1200 goblin lords, 350 orcs and all the foulers.

 

I have wasted all the gifts his grace gave me.