Meanwhile, with the gods no longer providing powerful support, the human fleet racing toward the Oceanus Sea was forced into a brutal fight against a dense, seemingly endless mass of titanic aberrations.
Hundreds, then thousands of deep-sea warships surfaced from the waters. As crimson-black light patterns rippled across their hulls, the grotesque gun mouths on both sides, crazily devouring surrounding Ether particles, immediately unleashed a relentless bombardment on the civilization host that had delivered itself right to their doorstep.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Crimson beams scythed through the air like death's sickle, sharp detonations cracking one after another.
But as the sea boiled and a vast curtain of vaporous mist rose and writhed, human ships wrapped in an eggshell-like deep-blue light membrane broke through the haze. They carved hard turns across the surface and presented their broadsides.
In the harsh grind of gears and winches, the automatons, Dragonfang soldiers, and Earth Wardens working the side winches hauled up lapis-blue naval cannons. Each piece was forged entirely from magecraft metal and covered in dense, intricate incantations, raised to the precise elevation they'd been ordered to hold.
Now, under the protection of the automatons, Dragonfang soldiers, and Earth Wardens, the Magi, priests, and clerics stationed on both sides of the guns began chanting divine words at high speed.
At once, complex magecraft arrays bloomed along the cannon barrels, their rear housings, central spines, and muzzles in sequence. Converging mana beams compressed to the limit, then erupted in a thunderous blast. In an instant, hundreds of deep-sea warships that couldn't defend or dodge in time were brutally torn open by the crimson lances. Explosions and firelight flared, and the broken halves sank slowly into the ocean.
A clean surprise. It worked.
On the deck of the Argo, Jason slammed his fist against the rail, grinning so hard his face lit up.
As the translucent mist pulsed and drifted, ranks of ocean nymphs formed up in lines and grids, while the goddess of ocean currents, Thetis, stood at the Argo's prow. They guarded the fleet's front and both wings, laying blessings and protection over them.
Heh. Didn't see that coming, did you? We've got teeth too.
Thirty-six thousand Dingir seals. Three thousand nymphs' ocean blessing. That's plenty to make you bastards choke.
Jason ran his hand over the turret known as [Dingir seal]. The incantations on its surface brimmed with Mystery; inside, Ether particles surged like a flood; and the brilliant magic crystals embedded at every node left him utterly entranced.
This weapon of war, designed by the human overlord Theseus (stolen), then built by the god of forging Hephaestus, the three Cyclopes, and countless subordinate smith-gods, gave the once-disadvantaged human fleet the capital to stand toe-to-toe with the deep-sea fleet's steel monsters.
Once the deep-sea fleet's hard turtle shells could no longer protect their core engines, their so-called advantage vanished.
If anything, the human ships, iron-skinned on the outside and wooden within for easier mana conduction and sharper turns, actually held the edge in speed and adaptability.
A moment later, the deep-sea fleet, still reeling, steadied itself after a brief burst of confusion and re-formed into a dense formation, surging in with ferocious momentum like starving wolves that had found a flock of sheep.
A packed charge? You really didn't learn a thing.
Standing into the sea wind, Jason's mouth curled into a cold smile. He drew the long sword at his waist and, through resonance with the magecraft arrays, sent orders across the fleet.
"First and Second Fleets, swing wide and flank! Our hulls are reinforced, but they're still not as hard as deep-sea warships. Do not ram, do not make direct contact!"
"Third and Fourth Fleets, [Dingir seal] charging complete. Target the sea thirty kilometers ahead. Rotate fire coverage in waves and cover our allies' push!"
The Greek fleet spread out. With their superior mobility, they not only dodged most of the deep-sea fleet's bombardment, they also used that advantage to wheel around, bring their cooled [Dingir seal] batteries back to bear, and launch spiteful counterfire under the cover of the nymphs' sea mist.
More than that, the seemingly juicy Third and Fourth Fleets constantly shifted. Sometimes they fought while retreating, sometimes they slid sideways and turned, always keeping that maddening, just-out-of-reach distance. Like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey, close enough to see, impossible to bite, forcing the deep-sea fleet to chase itself ragged.
Meanwhile, the First and Second Fleets sweeping in from both wings were like piranha packs worrying a slow, lumbering beast, tearing strips off over and over, chewing through the deep-sea fleet's numbers at speed.
A fierce tiger still fears a pack of wolves. With mobility, the concealment granted by ocean blessing, and the [Dingir seal] as a sharp spear for cracking armor and smashing through, the Argo Expeditionary Force refused to get dragged into brainless close-quarters clashes with the massed deep-sea fleet. With comparatively light losses, they pulled the balance of victory little by little toward their side.
So this is the wolf-pack tactic you mentioned in the letter?
Brother, I'm seriously getting more and more impressed.
A god in the heavens, a king on the earth. With you commanding Athens, if this fleet can keep its core and its fighting spirit, it'll be unstoppable.
Jason watched as, in barely a few dozen minutes, the surface of the sea had become carpeted with the burning, sinking wreckage of deep-sea warships, while his own losses remained light. He could not help but marvel.
Just as the fleet battle was about to reach its conclusion, the seawater around the human ships suddenly boiled and surged violently.
Roar!
Roar!!
In a split second, amid shrill howls, flame-wreathed demon hounds tens of meters long burst up from beneath the surface and lunged savagely at the ships. One after another, primordial chimeras sprang into the air, three heads opening at once to spew tri-colored breath.
At the same time, silver-gray streaks twisted and shot forward. Primordial snake-women rose through the sea mist, loosing erosive arrows from drawn bows, flicking their tongues to emit high-frequency oscillation waves, and chanting divine words to call down mana curse shots. One barrage after another crashed into the human ships caught in the encirclement.
And that still wasn't all. Wide-area annihilation weapons swept in from above, Atlantis soldiers drove deep-sea warships into brutal ramming charges, and even aberrant sea beasts surged in from every direction.
On the open sea, the Greek fleet was facing far more than deep-sea warships.
Ekkedna Armory creations, sea-beast aberrations, Atlantis's fallen defensive forces, and even the titan-soldier legions personally forged by the three Alien vanguards. They had to handle all of it themselves. Everywhere he looked, there were enemies.
"First Fleet, port-side wing! Titan-soldier spirit-fluid cannons charging! [Dingir seal] still cooling. Port rudder thirty degrees! Send Arcadia divine marksmen to prep precision kills now! Magus, enchantments! Clerics, blessings! Priests, spirit-calling! Full defensive formulae, now!"
"Ahead, Meteor Sea region. Large concentrations of snake-women. Magi, chant ritual spell one through three, thirty-three stanzas. Protect the hull. Open the hatches, deploy hellfire sea mines!"
"Closing on the storm zone! Flocks of fallen wyverns spotted. Pegasus Knights and battle nymphs, knock those bastards out of the sky!"
Standing before the command room's battlefield sand table, Jason's mind spun at full speed. Under the unending pressure of the assault, he wrung out every last idea, responding to each threat one by one.
Even so, as they forced their way through blockade after blockade, the Greek fleet's losses began to spike. The ships around them grew thinner and thinner, and the sight made Jason's face stiffen. Irritation and suppressed anxiety started to creep in.
"Laaa!"
Then, a grim, murderous hymn thundered across the sea. The three Alien vanguards each drew their star rings together, raised their Sword of the God of War, and with star patterns blazing, unleashed torrents of overwhelming Ether like a flood.
In Jason's eyes, the reflection was unmistakable: the entire sea region, in an instant, was swallowed up and riddled through by that terrifying radiance.