West of the Kingdom of Hadrata, on the endless sea of ​​fog, a strong divine light emerged, and the thick fog around it immediately dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye...

Flying flags emerged from the fog, followed by the huge pole and ship, and then the entire fleet!

This is the empire's long-distance fleet. Each ship is a latest type of sailing warship, more than seventy meters in length, like a terrifying behemoth cutting through the waves on the sea.

However, this mighty fleet looked extremely miserable as it sped along. Some of the warships at the rear were severely damaged, with flames even coming out of their sails.

The next moment, accompanied by bursts of artillery fire, hundreds of shells the size of a human head flew out from the fog, targeting the entire fleet!

Although these artillery fire seemed to have no accuracy at all, most of them hit the sea surface, and some shells even landed directly hundreds of meters away from the target. Apart from blasting up columns of water, they had no other significance.

But the number of artillery fire is too large. Even if only one-thirtieth of them can hit the target, it is still a huge threat...

As hymns faintly sounded on the sea, invisible divine protection surrounded the sailing ships, resisting the attacks of artillery shells.

Casting such a large-scale divine spell is obviously a big challenge for these priests and bishops.

More importantly, similar attacks would occur almost every ten minutes or so, leaving them no chance to rest or relax.

A warship that fell behind the fleet was hit by five consecutive artillery shells. The divine protection covering the hull exploded instantly. The priests on the sailing ship vomited blood due to the strong backlash. They could only watch as the huge shells hit the hull and smashed holes in the deck and hull.

One of the projectiles was insidiously blessed with explosive magic, and it hit the stern of the ship and exploded immediately. Flames and smoke shot up into the sky, and the huge hull turned over and sank to the bottom of the water while shaking and trembling... shrill screams rang out continuously, and the soldiers and priests on the ship could only jump into the sea to protect themselves, and swim to the nearest ship with difficulty.

"This group of damned devil believers, minions of the evil god, they should be thrown into hell and their souls should be annihilated in the endless fire of hell!"

In the center of the fleet, on a giant warship, Cardinal Silide was cursing angrily, and the faces of the bishops beside him were extremely ugly.

Half a month ago, they were ordered to lead the Empire's First Fleet, preparing to set out on the sea to directly raid the base camp of those wizards and destroy this illegal wizard organization that has troubled the Holy See for many years, hiding in the fog like a rat, and popping up from time to time to disgust people!

But to their surprise, when the fleet was halfway through the journey, they coincidentally encountered a fleet of wizards.

Judging from the direction of the enemy, they should be going to provide support to the Kingdom of Hadratha...the number of ships is less than one-third of theirs!

This was undoubtedly an unexpected gain, which delighted all the bishops. They rushed forward, intending to destroy the wizard fleet directly to relieve the pressure on the battlefield of the kingdom.

As soon as the battle started, the sharp artillery left a very deep impression on Silide and others. The number and power of the artillery were far beyond the kerosene throwers loaded on their ships.

This thing is said to be a new weapon developed by wizards. The specific information is still in the collection stage, so they were caught off guard.

What annoyed Silide the most was that just when the First Fleet decided to withstand the bombardment and force its way close for boarding combat, the wizards' fleet turned around and ran away, with no intention of engaging with them at all, and even attacked with artillery while running.

After rough calculations, the artillery's range is over one kilometer. In comparison, the kerosene throwers equipped by the fleet can only reach about five hundred meters even with the blessing of divine power.

The remaining 500 meters was like an insurmountable chasm. The First Fleet chased for several hours and lost more than 30 warships before they realized that they would never be able to cross this distance.

The speed displayed by the opponent was actually far from reaching the limit, but it was just giving them the illusion that they could catch up as long as they went a little faster, so as to continuously consume the number of warships.

After realizing this, the fleet gave up the pursuit under the order of the Chief Judge, turned around and continued to sail towards the land of wizards.

However, the wizards' ships were like a group of cunning and shameless hyenas. They turned back and hung behind them, keeping a distance from them. They continued to harass them with their advantages in speed and range, destroying dozens of ships in a row...

Sirid and the others then found themselves in an awkward situation where they could not catch up, hit or escape. They were like a living target standing upright on the sea, passively enduring rounds of bombardment from the enemy...

Extremely frustrated! Some bad-tempered bishops were so angry that they fainted! Sirid had tried to use the cardinal's flying ability to attack the ships directly, but the problem was that their flying speed was not as fast as that of the steel giant ship, and once they got close to a distance of 200 meters, they would have to face the attack of dozens of magic crystal cannons. A cardinal was almost killed on the spot, and they could only turn back in disgrace.

The sound of gunfire continued. After this round of shooting, two more warships burst into flames and sank to the bottom of the water. The wizards' fleet finally emerged from the fog.

At a glance, there were about a hundred ships, all of which had no sails installed, but were able to move forward rapidly on the sea, running several times faster than their sailing warships! The most eye-catching were the four giant warships in front! Each of them was over a hundred meters long and more than thirty meters high. The shell was made of all metal, and it looked like it weighed hundreds or even thousands of tons, like a mobile fortress on the sea...

Sirid couldn't imagine what kind of powerful magic those wizards had used to make the giant steel ship sail rapidly in the sea! Seeing that the ferocious gun barrels on the steel ship began to adjust their positions, and the next round of artillery fire was about to come, Sirid hurriedly turned his head to look at the presiding judge and spoke anxiously.

"Lord Joshua, should we start now?"

If they continue to fight like this, the Empire's fleet will be completely consumed by rounds of bombardment, and won't even be able to touch the enemy!

(End of this chapter)