There was more than one Army Breaker-class powerhouse among the sea folk. The advantage the Kingdom Army’s knight had gained didn’t last even three seconds before the enemy struck back hard.
The moment the knight landed a slash, a gigantic water dragon came roaring in from the distance.
The water dragon was enormous and lifelike, radiating an indescribably powerful presence. Even the knight himself stared in shock.
Looking into the distance, he saw an enemy standing on the water. With one hand, they swept the water dragon into a sudden turn, placing themselves within the crest of its waves.
Sea folk warriors excelled at controlling water. In the middle of a body of water, summoning a dragon from it was precisely their specialty.
You could say this was their home battlefield.
The situation was extremely grim for the Kingdom Army’s soldiers.
Even fighting with all their might, they couldn’t fully hold back the enemy’s assault. With certain powerful foes joining the fray, things only grew more and more unfavorable.
The battle was growing more desperate by the moment. One more fierce assault from the sea folk, and the Kingdom Army would be finished.
Just then, right there in the middle of the battlefield, the sea folk warriors suddenly stopped moving. Their heads all turned in the same direction.
They stared that way and saw a pure-white blade of air, more than ten meters long, slash down like a hurricane from the highest heavens!
Not long after, their own senses told them something had happened:
Shawu was dead. Their leader had been killed by the enemy on the battlefield!
This was a major event—one big enough to change the outcome of the entire war.
With their leader dead, the sea folk warriors didn’t think about how to avenge Shawu. Instead, they all focused on the same thing, and soon put that thought into action.
Sharp cries rang out one after another. Just how fish-like creatures managed to make sounds like birdsong was something scholars might want to look into.
Once the cries had spread, the sea folk warriors who could still move gathered up their wounded companions who could still be saved, dived underwater, and quickly left the battlefield.
That’s right. What they were doing now was:
A full retreat!
In some ways, the sea folk were just like humans. Once they lost their leader, even a massive army could fall apart in a short time.
The Kingdom soldiers must have thought life was wonderful right then. Sometimes happiness really did arrive without warning.
The soldiers, panting heavily, had no intention of pursuing the enemy.
Give me a break. Just surviving was already a miracle. They’d only barely managed to keep their lives.
They treasured the second chance at life they’d fought so hard to get, and had no intention of pushing their advantage any further. For now, they only planned to hold their original line.
“Come back! Get back here, now!”
No matter how much the Knight Commander shouted himself hoarse, the lot underwater didn’t respond.
Then the Empire’s soldiers could only watch as the enemy who’d fallen into the water climbed back aboard their ships, and the battle line on their own ships was gradually pushed back.
The Empire’s soldiers had witnessed it all with their own eyes: their side had gone from being on the verge of victory to falling back into a disadvantage.
At the same time, the mages—now charred black—fell from the sky. Not one survived.
The next second, the gray-robed figure landed back on the Sea Knight.
The sea folk reinforcements had fled, and the mages they’d counted on as their trump card had all fallen into the sea to feed the fish.
In less than five minutes, the course of the battle had been completely reversed.
They’d been so close!
The Knight Commander felt he’d come so close to victory—and to the bright future of rising to the rank of Marshal after the war. He’d only been that tiny bit away...
The Empire’s soldiers who’d been knocked off their warships and left drifting at sea on planks were now close to despair.
If the battle didn’t end soon, all ten thousand of them might die out there on the water.
As the cold crept into both their bodies and their hearts, a shout suddenly rang out in the distance:
“A fleet! A fleet!”
Every soldier who heard those words turned to look at the sea to the east.
Ship after ship was racing into view at incredible speed.
Before long, the enormous fleet filled the horizon in every Empire soldier’s sight.
But the flags flying high above the ships told them that this was Barta’s fleet.
In other words, it was the enemy’s fleet. They were about to be captured!
Still, being captured was better than dying for nothing out on the open sea.
Besides, their leader had abandoned them long ago.
The moment the Knight Commander ordered these small ships to circle the outside, he’d effectively turned the soldiers aboard them into shields and sacrificial pawns.
So, to the soldiers, being captured might actually be a good thing.
After all, they’d never heard of Barta mistreating prisoners.
Those who’d fallen into the water were hauled aboard one by one. After their weapons were confiscated, the Kingdom soldiers had them register their names, one at a time.
Seeing that all was lost, the Knight Commander ordered his forces to abandon part of the fleet and split up.
He fled with more than a hundred of the fastest large ships, while the rest of the Empire’s fleet was surrounded by the Kingdom Army.
The string of defeats had already dealt a heavy blow to morale. Now their commander had fled, and their spirits hit rock bottom.
The Kingdom Army kept attacking for a while longer. With no hope of escape, the abandoned troops had no choice but to raise the flag and surrender.
And with that, this massive naval battle finally came to an end.
When the Knight Commander set out, he had more than twelve hundred ships of various sizes and a total of forty thousand men.
The other fleet had around eight hundred warships and twenty-six thousand people, sailors included.
By the end of the battle, no more than five hundred Empire ships had managed to escape.
Of the more than sixty thousand soldiers, only half had broken through successfully. The rest had either been killed or captured.
Without a doubt, with the Inran faction’s defeat in this crucial naval battle, the waters controlled by the Dibiles side would no longer be threatened.
At long last, the Kingdom Army had won a complete victory!
“Your Majesty, it looks like I can come help you now...”
Anliexi was in high spirits when the communication crystal suddenly lit up.
This thing was seriously well-made. Even after such a fierce battle, he hadn’t managed to break it.
After taking a few deep breaths, Anliexi fixed his gaze straight ahead, activated the crystal, and began speaking with his trusted subordinate back in the royal capital.
A moment later, the man’s figure appeared before his eyes, entirely crimson. His trusted subordinate was covered in blood.
“Y-Your Majesty, something terrible has happened!”
After exchanging a few words with him, Anliexi learned some terrible news:
There had been a coup in the Kingdom of Barta!
Taking advantage of the perfect opportunity while the king was away on campaign, the prince and a group of ministers aligned with Inran had purged the faction in the capital that supported their suzerain state.
The coup had come without warning, and it was the heir to the throne and his followers who’d struck. The senior ministers Anliexi had left behind never even had a chance to fight back. The rebels’ surprise attack had already killed or wounded most of them.
As the civil and military officials who supported the king fell in bloody heaps, the prince had his trusted aides take command of the army that surrendered, then quickly seized the city and the royal palace.
A rebellion needed a reason. It didn’t matter whether that reason could convince the people, but it had to leave the remaining ministers and lords with no choice but to accept it.
The prince’s reason was this:
“Dibiles is on the verge of falling. By insisting on helping our suzerain state, the king will only lead Barta to ruin!”
It was the perfect excuse.
The local lords hadn’t wanted anything to do with Dibiles in the first place. They’d even tried to persuade His Majesty a while ago, but Anliexi simply wouldn’t listen.
Naturally, the lords were more in favor of the prince’s plan to cozy up to the stronger power.
It was the only way for these people who already had everything to avoid losing it all after the war—including their lives.
From the ministers’ point of view, it was better to avoid making trouble.
If they sided with the prince, they could avoid both Inran’s retaliation afterward and a direct clash with the prince’s fierce soldiers right now.
It didn’t take much thought to see:
That wasn’t one less problem. It was two!
And so, just about everyone back home had turned against him.
If a handful of people, including his trusted subordinate, hadn’t risked their lives to escape the palace and make contact from somewhere relatively safe, Anliexi would still be in the dark.
Once he learned what was happening, he immediately realized:
The palace had fallen so quickly that this upheaval couldn’t have been sudden or accidental. The people behind it had been planning their move for a long time!
Was his son simply too impatient to become king, or had he launched the rebellion because he didn’t want to offend Inran?
Whatever the reason, Anliexi had to face reality:
There was nowhere left for him in Barta!
Anliexi had taken the country’s main forces with him to support Dibiles.
The ordinary soldiers left behind weren’t very strong to begin with. And plenty of them were probably on the prince’s and the ministers’ side.
In these circumstances, once the royal palace fell, it would only be a matter of time before the local lords switched sides.
In other words, on the very day the Dibiles side won this naval battle, it would lose a vast stretch of valuable territory to Inran.
It was a bitter disappointment for Anliexi.
Even though he’d been left with barely half a life while fighting for the future of his suzerain state and his kingdom, the people back home—including his own son—would never appreciate it.
Even though he’d won this war for the sake of what was right, he wouldn’t change anyone’s mind. In the end, most people only cared about their own interests.
“Hahahahaha...”
Suddenly, Anliexi burst out laughing. It had nothing to do with grief or any other such emotion. He was happy.
Anliexi was a man who lived for justice and principle—a man who lived freely.
If he hadn’t needed to inherit his father’s legacy, he never would’ve become king. He’d never felt particularly attached to the position, either.
His feelings were just as he put them in his own words:
“Wonderful! Being king was a pain anyway. Now that I’m rid of that burden, I can go serve Her Majesty the Empress as a foot soldier!”
