There were about 50 of the Amakusa members.
In contrast, on the Roman Catholic side, there were a total of 250 nuns. Normally speaking, in terms of numbers, they would lose. But this was a ship, and not all of them were gathered at the same place. Besides, the basics of ship combat were different from land combat. In order to pull the distance closer, the Amakusa concentrated their fire on close distance. Even in this chaotic situation, they could still move about nimbly. In contrast, the Roman Catholics, who outnumbered the Amakusa, were obstructed by their comrades and their weapons. The Amakusa knew how to fight back with less people. This was the force of these few Amakusa members, the techniques they had learned to fight against many enemies.
Coincidentally, it had been the same during The Book of the Law incident.
There was only one thing that was different.
Was Agnese Sanctis the one they should be protecting? Or was she the one they should be beating?
"Hurry up and go! No matter what, we must save that kid! We'll delay the main fighting force here!!"
Being prompted by Tatemiya, Kamijou ran on.
Three more ships and they could get closer to the flagship.
While the Amakusa continued to delay the nuns, Kamijou, together with Index and Orsola, headed off from one ship to another. Of the trio, only Orsola could use the wooden bridge spell. She carefully read the spell, even more so than ordinary magicians, and released the bundles of paper one after another.
The flagship 'Queen of the Adriatic Sea' was right in front of their eyes.
The mastermind that was being protected by all the escort ships, imprisoning Agnese Sanctis, and wielding the large-scale magic facility that could destroy Venezia in one shot. If that was the command point, Biagio Busoni, who hadn't appeared, should be there as well.
"Let's go, Index, Orsola!!"
Kamijou shouted as he ran past the wooden bridge and stepped onto the ship.
It was a huge deck.
In the middle of the 'Queen's Fleet', where the ships could easily be over 100m in length, this ship was easily twice the size of the other ships. The ice walls were a lot more glamorous than the other ships; the entire ship looked like white gold basking under the moonlight. In terms of decorations, if it could be said that the other ships were heavily focused on military functions, then this ship was more like a magnificent palace. Even the door handles and pillars had an artistic sense to them, and on the edge of the ship, there were figures of angels and the Virgin Mary. Though Kamijou didn't head off to the front end of the ship, the thing placed there should be some grand artistic item.
"Seems like…no one's around…"
Orsola held onto the Lotus Wand as she looked around.
"This ship feels like it's imitating the Doge, which is when the governor steps on the ship. It's a ship that's used during the National festival of 'Marriage to the Sea'."
"Just like a magic ship. This ship controls all the ship functions of the 'Queen's Fleet'. It continues to make ice decorations and setups. It's also a ship that controls and deploys the other ships."
Hearing Index say this, Kamijou carefully looked around.
"So the nuns won't be here and the cannons won't aim here? This ship looks like it can't be easily repaired by using seawater. If it could, there would be no need for so many escort ships around."
In order to enter the ship, Index reached her hand out to the nearest door, but even with this, the door wouldn't open. Looking closely, the keyholes of the doors and the walls were all stuffed with ice. This was basically just like part of the wall.
"Wait a moment; I'll remove the magic lock…"
Her words were interrupted.
Kamijou steps forward.
"…No need to be so polite. I feel that it's already too troublesome to worry about all these!!"
With this irritated cry, Kamijou clenched his fist and smashed it into the middle of the door.
BAM!!
The door and even the surrounding wall were blown away. Where Kamijou had punched, there was a 3m square hole in the wall.
"Really amazing."
"That's because this is different from the escort ships; there's magic on even the walls and floors."
The lock and even the other constructs were destroyed as well.
The crumbled entrance revealed an inside similar in appearance to the outside of the 'Queen of the Adriatic Sea', like an interior cruise pathway. But the space 3m inside was also cut, eradicated cleanly. Seemed like the hit just now hadn't just been limited to a square, but a cube. There's even only half of an Angel-figure wall light.
"This is a block structure."
Index explained clearly,
"This removes the bare minimum required to minimise the damage. So even if it's Touma's right hand, it can't destroy everything in one go."
On an escort ship, even if he touched the ship, this wouldn't happen. Kamijou thought that with this, their explanation of the flagship continually changing shapes and using this to control the ships should be correct.
But he had no time to ask his question.
"BAM!!"
The ice blocks rose up from below the deck, surrounding the group from left, right, and behind. The ice blocks immediately adjusted themselves, removing the unnecessary parts, transforming into 3m tall Western golems.
And it was not just one or two.
20 to 30 of these ice sculptures surrounded Kamijou's group instantly.
"Inside!"
Orsola shouted,
"They should be here to protect the ship, this should prevent them from destroying the inside!!"
Before Orsola could finish speaking, Index had already grabbed onto Kamijou's hand as she ran off. Kamijou originally intended to use his right hand, and because of this unexpected situation, lost his balance as he ran off.
The numerous Western golems started to move their swords and axes, which were made of the same material.
With the sound of a WHOOSH!, the air was cut.
BOOM!! With a terrifying sound, numerous slashes collided with each other. The strikes grazed Index's swaying hair, nearly pierced Kamijou's face, and missed the top of Orsola's head, who was ducking down as she ran. Kamijou was so terrified that his breathing nearly stopped, but his feet wouldn't stop because of this.
Before the next wave of attacks, the trio rolled into the damaged hole and into the ship.
The interior design was exquisite as the outside — seemed like they had spent a lot of effort to make them. Angel statues lay left and right, and the lights on the walls continued to change their shape slowly. Forget about a handle, one could even feel the painstaking effort that the artisan and the artist had put into even a small screw. However, there wasn't really any need for a screw on an ice ship.
"This…"
Orsola, who was sitting on the floor, barely managed to open her mouth before the large number of golems rushed inside.
"DAMN IT!!"
Kamijou got up from the floor and pulled Orsola and Index, who was lifelessly lying on the floor, by their hands. It was more like swinging them inside though, instead of pulling.
Blunt sounds could be heard.
The numerous golems entered the entrance and were stuck there. These golems couldn't move, so spikes appeared on their chest and abdomen, breaking those ice sculptures. The new golems stepped on the ice sculptures and into the passageway. Like a storm blowing, the huge golems reached where Kamijou's group was.
"THEY'RE…CHASING US…!?"
Index shouted, and Kamijou could already guess the priority of the ice golems.
(…Looks like they want to destroy my right hand, huh?)
The entrance and wall were only destroyed once, at the same time. Even if they didn't know the reason, the enemy should be able to guess the threat that the Imagine Breaker brought.
(If that's the case…!)
Just as Kamijou reached the intersection of the paths, he clenched his right hand.
"INDEX, ORSOLA! MOVE AHEAD FIRST!!"
He pushed the two girls into the side path, and ran to the furthermost place.
"TOUMA!!"
Before Index could take the next action, the numerous golems chased after Kamijou, and some of them chased after Orsola's group.
"WOOOOHHH!!"
As Kamijou pretended to use his right fist to destroy the wall, the golems immediately turned to the boy. All the ice security guards raised their weapons and chased after Kamijou.