"Have all the ships been destroyed?" I asked, fixing my loose robes after a turbulent wind beforehand.
"Yes, Milord," the head of the port bowed and responded, "All ships were hit with great precision and exploded."
Truth to be told, I wouldn't bother coming here directly myself if only any of the six pillars other than me could do what I did just now, or at least something relatively close to my capabilities. But right now, they're still far from it, so that's why I have to solve this myself.
If I let somebody do it, then my still-small organization might take a loss in manpower, or this might reveal something to the world, and I couldn't afford to have that right now. We are still expanding, and if the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation pay too much attention to this region, it might slow us down or even force us to stop.
Now that I have obliterated a fleet of warships designated by the Fire Nation here, they will be forced to not touch this region for a few more decades or be more cautious when dealing here. Meanwhile, Ba Sing Se will think of Earthen as a business organization, their main supplier of weapons, for now.
This also lets me test my capabilities after a long time. Throwing compressed boulders at a speed close to the sound barrier requires an enormous amount of Qi and mastery over earth. If I guessed right, I'm close to reaching Bumi's peak strength during the canon, but with unlimited Qi.
"Tell Ron to wait for the private army to arrive here, and they'll be the ones that will transport him to the west," I ordered. "And for you, leave slots for the scout ships and reinforce the port."
"That will be done quickly, Milord."
I didn't say anything more and used my Earthbending to levitate the ground around me before propelling myself to the clouds.
–
How is this even possible?
Admiral Ozmu has gotten the report just now that the twenty advanced warships he sent to the southwest region of the Earth Kingdom have been missing for two days now. No one can spot them or their tracks, no messengers arrive from them, and no nothing. It's like they just disappeared, and that's impossible.
It's twenty warships—enough to call it a small fleet. It's filled with battle-hardened men, men that harness and have the capabilities to use the power of the most destructive element that is fire. The people there are just mostly barbarians that can throw rocks, and they're sitting on a massive metal machine.
There's no way they suddenly vanished from existence without anyone noticing or seeing them.
This is bad. Very bad news for him.
He was tasked with locating the Avatar throughout the whole Southern Water Tribe with hundreds of ships, mostly scout ships. If those twenty really got defeated and sunk to the bottom of the ocean, then the scope of where he could track the Avatar lessened. There's also the people of the Southern Water Tribe fighting intensely with them; they could even destroy a warship with just a few dozen Waterbenders. With this loss, it will severely weaken his fleet, and the task of locating - if not slowing - the Avatar's progress through intimidation will unlikely happen.
And there's no way that the Fire Nation will give him any more ships while there is heavy fighting going on in the western Earth Kingdom frontline.
He doesn't know how he will explain this to the Fire Lord.
For now, he has no choice but to not be further involved in this part of the Earth Kingdom since he can't take any more losses.
"Fuck, this is going to put a bad image on my name."
–
"We lost a major stronghold to the west, Fire Lord. We will have no choice but to postpone the hunt for the Avatar and allocate those forces to the west to reinforce it. We can't let the Earth Kingdom gain momentum."
Failure. Every one of his subjects is a failure. Sozin's eyes narrowed sharply as he took all the information silently. The fire around him lightened up every corner of the hall, and the temperature inside was rising.
Failure after failure.
He was taking a very slow approach in his conquest, but this one seems to be slowly failing miserably.
It's because of that damned Earthen!
They're the ones behind this. The moment they appeared, everything started slowing down for them. All Earth Kingdom forces are now equipped with their highly decent weapons. That's not a problem if we're another army other than them, but they're the biggest nation in the world and the biggest population - double the amount of everybody else combined - and that means they have the biggest army as well.
That enormous army wasn't so threatening before when they were just mostly unequipped and most firepower came from Earthbenders. Now they're equipped to the teeth, and the advanced military machines they have have been equalized by their sheer numbers.
Ants. All of them.
"The hunt for Avatars continues, but don't supply the southern fleet with any more weapons, manpower, and ships. Focus all forces on strengthening the western strongholds. And another thing, start funding the anti-noble rebels all over the Earth Kingdom."
"Yes, Fire Lord!"
He doesn't want the whole Earth Kingdom to focus on them, as it's easier to conquer a divided and chaotic nation. These rebels he has been hearing about are a great way to sow division in an already mismanaged nation.
"General Rinhu, give a word to the lead scientist that I want him to start producing new machines for the army. It's been a while…"
"I will do so immediately, Fire Lord."
Sozin has seen the toys that were sent to his grandchildren. They float using fire, and fire is all and everything they have. If this were successfully developed, it could give the Fire Nation air dominance all over the world. Airbenders are no more, and they will control the skies for them.