The main reason the Imperial Army had appeared here was to stop the Royal Army from crossing these waters and prevent Anliexi from going to the suzerain state’s aid.
In other words, the Royal Army was on the offensive, while the Imperial Army could, in a sense, be considered the defender.
For the latter, no matter how heavy a toll they took on the former, if they couldn’t hold these waters, it would be no different from a crushing defeat.
So the Knight Commander’s choice was, in truth, to stop trying to slug it out with the Royal Army’s fleet.
The Knight Commander was considering a way to defeat his opponent. After thinking it over for a while, he came up with one last option.
After their previous engagements, he’d begun to feel that—
With their ordinary warships and crews of merely above-average ability, they’d have a hard time matching those powerful enemies.
The Knight Commander had come to understand the reality of the situation, and the mages standing by aboard the ships understood it just as well.
Now that things had taken a turn for the worse and defeat was looming, the Knight Commander couldn’t afford to hold anything back. He had to use every means at his disposal.
At once, he gave the following order:
“Mages, attack!”
Originally, the Knight Commander had planned to defeat the Royal Army’s fleet first, then use magic during the landing battle afterward.
After all, the mages’ stamina wasn’t infinite.
If they used magic now, the strain would be so great that they’d have to sit out the rest of the fighting from the rear.
But now, forget the landing battle—even getting through the naval battle seemed like a struggle.
If he stuck to his original plan and let them miss their chance to strike back, only for the Imperial Army to end up defeated...
Then when he returned, forget getting promoted—he’d be lucky if he wasn’t demoted all the way down to a lowly foot soldier.
The ordinary sailors withdrew. On the flagship, two or three hundred high-ranking mages, spread out across the deck, all sprang into action at once.
In the blink of an eye, thousands of enormous fireballs appeared out of nowhere above the warships, then surged toward the distant Royal Army fleet in a vast, overwhelming wave.
For some reason, whether on the Eastern or Western Continent, and whether among humans or Demon Kings, everyone seemed especially fond of fire magic—and particularly eager to fling fireballs...
Even the thick steel plating on the Royal Army’s ships would have a hard time withstanding such powerful magic.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Royal Army was suddenly hit with a dense barrage of fiery shots. For a moment, they had no way to defend against them on their own.
A few small ships managed to dodge the fiery shots with their superior speed. Every other ship was hit.
A series of violent explosions rang out across the sea.
Across from the storm of fire, the Knight Commander watched a string of fierce flames erupt among the enemy fleet, and a flicker of satisfaction passed through him.
He thought that pack of little Royal Army brats would finally sink beneath the waves and feed the fish.
They’d had such an easy time beating up his side earlier, hadn’t they? Now that they were up against powerful mages, all they could do was take a beating.
“I can already picture myself going home and being made a marshal. I wonder what they’ll call me from now on?”
In the Inran Empire, a marshal’s title was officially decided according to which direction of the empire their territory lay in.
For instance, Le Song was called the South Marshal simply because his territory lay in the south of the empire.
Of course, the empire already had marshals for all four directions—east, west, north, and south.
Even if the number of marshal positions increased from four to five, the territories of the original four wouldn’t change.
So the Knight Commander had every reason to believe that his future territory would be in the central region of the empire.
Which meant people might call him the “Central Marshal” from then on!
Just thinking about the title made him feel inexplicably cool!
After imagining his bright future, the Knight Commander widened his eyes and stared out at the sea, quietly waiting for the Royal Army’s medium and large ships to sink beneath the waves from the damage.
In the attacks so far, he’d already watched more than a hundred enemy warships sink with his own eyes.
Every time he saw it happen, he felt immensely satisfied.
But when the flames faded, the Knight Commander was shocked to find that something seemed wrong this time...
The enemy ships in the distance were all glowing with a faint gray light.
The gray glow enveloped the entire fleet, as though a layer of gray armor had been wrapped around the ships.
The fiery shots slammed into it, setting off violent explosions and countless huge rings of light, yet they couldn’t shake the gray barrier in the slightest.
The ships protected by it hadn’t suffered even the slightest damage. They hadn’t so much as rocked, and continued sailing steadily across the sea.
“Oh my God! That’s a Level Fifteen protection spell!”
One of the high-ranking mages beside the Knight Commander stared wide-eyed at the astonishing sight across the water. A few seconds later, he couldn’t help shouting in shock.
The Knight Commander had no idea what this so-called protection spell was.
But from the sound of it, he figured it had something to do with the gray barrier around the enemy ships.
He looked at the Royal Army’s ships in the distance and wasn’t all that surprised.
Their commander was Anliexi, after all. It would’ve been strange if he had no answer to this.
And yet, the truth was stranger than he could’ve imagined!
In fact, Anliexi had never used a magic unit in any of his past naval battles.
Even when the fleet occasionally came under enemy magic attack, he’d have the warships charge straight at the enemy and beat them through sheer physical force.
Because of this habit, not a single mage had been assigned to the Royal Army’s ships.
And the barrier that had left the Imperial mages so astonished was actually the work of the gray-robed man, their strategist.
He wasn’t only good for offering advice from the rear. Anliexi, who’d been caught in a chokehold earlier, could attest to that.
As things stood, the Knight Commander had no idea—
—what had so astonished the mages beside him.
Of course, as someone who knew nothing about magic, he didn’t know—
—that even the Inran court mage couldn’t cast a Level Fifteen grand spell.
After all, the highest level of magic was only Level Sixteen!
No matter how many hundreds of high-ranking mages they had, even if every magic user in the empire gathered here, they still couldn’t completely break through that gray barrier.
Before a protection spell that could only be called absolute defense, the fiery shots the high-ranking mages had just unleashed were a full three levels weaker—and they couldn’t keep up a sustained barrage, either.
At that moment, even the people in the Imperial Army who understood magic began to wonder:
Could the enemy have more than a hundred masters of magic hidden away? Otherwise, how could they create a barrier that rivaled something out of legend?
At some point, the Knight Commander heard an extremely faint, almost wavering sound of footsteps behind him.
If he hadn’t been on alert and had exceptionally sharp hearing, he might have missed it.
The moment he heard those footsteps, the Knight Commander knew—
—that the bunch behind him, who’d spent most of the year freeloading and only lifted a finger on rare occasions, were now trying to sneak away.
Never mind that they were out at sea. Just where did they think they could run to while aboard a ship?
In any case, the Knight Commander couldn’t help himself. He immediately barked at the cowards behind him:
“They’re only a small kingdom. No matter how capable their commander is, they can still be defeated.
“Are you afraid of the magic they’ve used? Let me tell you: if the enemy were really that powerful, if they could keep using that spell for a long time, why didn’t they use it from the start?”
That was a fair question.
Once the high-ranking mages had calmed down, they thought it over carefully and realized the Knight Commander had a point.
If the enemy could use a spell that absurdly powerful whenever they wanted, why wait until now to bring out such an incredible weapon?
Besides, Barta was only a kingdom.
If it really had a whole group of mages that powerful, then its strength in magic alone would be enough to let it challenge even a weak empire. Why would it have kept such a low profile until now?
After considering things rationally for a while, the high-ranking mages concluded—
—that this had to be some kind of trick. If they simply stepped up their attacks, the barrier definitely wouldn’t last long!
The mages glanced at one another, and the doubts in their eyes vanished at once.
They gathered the holy power within their bodies, then attacked the Royal Army fleet across the water once more.
But just as they raised their hands, they suddenly saw tens of thousands of bright red dots appear across the sea ahead.
Then, in an instant, those dots became tens of thousands of enormous fireballs.
At the sight, the mages’ expressions changed. They hurriedly coordinated with one another to form a pale blue wind-element barrier over the ships beneath their feet.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
More than ten thousand fireballs hammered into the barrier one after another, sending ripples of holy power across its surface.
The one small mercy for the mages was that not a single fireball managed to break through. Their side had just barely managed to block the Royal Army’s attack.
Seeing that their fleet hadn’t suffered a scratch, the Knight Commander’s face immediately took on a contemptuous smile. He gave a cold snort and said:
“I thought those Royal Army fools had some impressive trick up their sleeves. Turns out they’re using nothing but mid-level fire magic.”
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking entirely relaxed. But the mages behind him, the ones responsible for the defense, were all groaning inwardly.
The Royal Army’s attacks might not have been very powerful, but there sure were a lot of them...
They had no idea what had gotten into the enemy. It was one thing when they weren’t striking back—but once they did, their attacks came in an incredibly dense barrage, as if they would never stop.
