Chapter 63
Surface-ship battles are spectacular.
The thunder of cannon fire ringing out in succession, flashes bursting from every direction, and carpet bombing mercilessly pounding the sea.
The battle on the sea, where ships spewed flames to annihilate their opponents, was already entering its final stage.
"All ships, maneuver freely! Pursue the retreating sailing ships!"
The moment the order was given, the destroyers broke away from the line and began advancing at maximum speed.
The East's final decisive fleet battle was settled in just ten minutes. Every first-rate ship of the line had been sunk, and almost all the second-rate ships of the line had gone down as well.
The enemy's visible losses alone amounted to nearly half their fleet.
"Make sure to tell the destroyer squadron to maintain a set distance at all times."
Since destroyers had virtually no armor, they risked being pierced by a barrage from sailing-ship cannons at a distance of just a few hundred meters.
After issuing that warning, I watched the battlefield slowly being cleared.
"A perfect victory."
The fleet split apart and advanced along either side of the enormous graveyard of ships spread out before us. I could almost feel the heat of the burning vessels reaching us.
No matter how desperately the sailing ships struggled to escape, there was no way to get away from the destroyers and wyverns.
"Contact the Horizon and Katarina Air Wings. Have them drop all their aerial bombs, return to the carriers, and equip depth charges."
The only battlefield left was beneath the sea.
To support the battle that would take place in that cold, dark, silent arena, the wyvern units launched once again.
Hoping for a clean victory beneath the sea as well.
***
"Distance to the enemy Tusoteuthises, approximately 1.5 kilometers! It's starting to get dangerous!"
The Tusoteuthises had closed in on the rear of the submarine unit fleeing at full speed. Submarines were by no means slow, but they were not fast enough to shake off the pursuit of colossal undersea creatures 200 meters long.
"Fire torpedoes!"
Grrrrrrrr-
Amid a chorus of bubbling sounds, two torpedoes launched from the bow. The torpedoes moving forward left trails of bubbles as they turned and began traveling backward.
And shortly afterward.
- Boom!
The explosion shook the seafloor.
"Torpedo hit!"
"The Tusoteuthis?"
"I can hear it... It's still moving. It seems unharmed."
"Tch, are they using their own side as meat shields as they come?"
They were almost at the point where the main submarine force was waiting. They were within torpedo range, where they could fire as soon as the order was given.
Should they begin an engagement on their own even now? The moment Ethan clenched his fist at the thought—
"Message from the Dreadnought! We've annihilated the surface fleet, so there's no need to keep our distance any longer!"
At last, the long-awaited message arrived.
Ethan gave the order without waiting a moment.
"Iliad Air Wing, begin the air raid!"
Until then, the wyvern knights of the makeshift aircraft carrier SDS Iliad, attached to the submarine fleet, had been waiting for an opportunity in the sky.
The composition of the Iliad Air Wing was somewhat unusual.
That was because two riders were mounted on each wyvern, which normally carried only one person.
Moreover, what they carried on their backs was not an ammunition container but a depth-charge launcher.
The second rider's role was to operate that depth-charge launcher. It was a configuration modified for full-scale antisubmarine warfare.
Thanks to this, they could immediately set the depth of the depth charges and drop them even while flying swiftly just above the surface.
That was a considerable advantage.
It allowed them to directly counter the strategy of the Eastern undersea monster legion.
Their method was a meat-shield strategy: advancing while using small fry to conceal the Tusoteuthises' bodies.
The wyverns' depth charges were the weapons prepared to strip away that "meat shield."
"Confirmed. Enemy undersea monster wakes sighted. We will begin the air raid immediately!"
"The undersea monster formation has been identified from above! The enemy isn't very deep!"
As soon as they determined the enemy's depth, the veteran wyvern knights formed their plan in an instant.
"Understood! 1~10번 Wyverns, set your depth-charge time fuses for shallow depth! 11~20번 Wyverns, set your depth-charge time fuses for medium depth!"
"1~10번 Wyverns will form the first squadron! Enter first and wipe out the undersea monsters near the surface! Then 11~20번 Wyverns, as the second squadron, will wipe out the ones fleeing deeper into the sea!"
While the copilots strapped themselves firmly into the saddles and prepared the depth charges, the wyverns increased their speed.
The Iliad Air Wing, which had been tracking the undersea monsters from high above until then, split into two. Some folded their wings and began diving, while others spread their wings and climbed.
"1~10번 Wyverns, begin the dive!"
The sight of the enormous sky beasts, each with a wingspan of 30 meters, folding their wings and gliding downward was truly spectacular.
Leaving brilliant white trails from the tips of their enormous wings, the wyvern knights skimmed over the surface at a dizzying speed. The shock waves tore across the surface, throwing up spray.
The wyverns that had been far behind caught up with the tail of the undersea monster formation in an instant.
The moment the wyverns reached the tops of the monsters at tremendous speed—
"Drop depth charges!"
Krrrrik-!
With a cold mechanical sound, the depth charges packed inside the boxes dropped out one after another. In the blink of an eye, dozens of small columns of water spread across the surface.
The wyvern knights immediately pulled up after completing their drop.
Even wyvern knights clad in aura had no desire to take those explosions near the surface.
The moment the ten wyverns took off with the sound of powerful wingbeats—
Kuuung!
A massive shock that erupted beneath the surface literally pushed the sea upward.
The sea swelled into a circle centered on the blast site, then a huge column of water shot into the sky.
A shock wave that arrived half a beat later spread across the surface.
Before that shock had even faded, the time fuses of dozens of depth charges went off in succession.
Boom! Thud! Krrr-boom!
The successive explosions rose one after another, as if erecting pillars over the sea. Shock waves, foam, and mist burst up from every direction.
Whenever the water columns that had surged impossibly high collapsed, powerful waves spread outward in every direction. The surface heaved without pause as round waves spread out in rings.
"Did they hit?"
"I'll check!"
One of the riders among the wyverns that had climbed high into the sky turned their gaze toward the sea once more.
The pure-white band of foam left at the blast site was slowly turning red. Bodies floated to the surface, and blood gradually spread.
"Multiple pieces of debris! We scored hits!"
"Good. Second squadron, begin the air raid!"
The second wyvern squadron that dove from high above filled the gap left by the unit that had completed its air raid.
With the sound of cutting through the wind, depth charges shot out behind the wyverns skimming the surface, accompanied by small gunpowder pops—pop-pop.
"With this, hiding cowardly behind their own side is over."
At those words, enormous columns of water rose wildly once again.
***
The wyvern unit's sudden ambush was an attack the undersea monster handlers had not anticipated at all.
Of course, the East was not unaware of the wyvern unit's existence. It was easy to learn that the West and South had merged and that wyvern knights had settled in the West among them.
The people of the East had made only one mistake.
The arrogant misconception that these wyverns could strike only targets on the surface.
"Ha, I told you an attack like that won't work anymore!"
The Eastern mages said that confidently as they blocked the torpedoes.
More undersea monster groups than expected were consumed in the process, but it did not matter. As long as the Tusoteuthises remained unharmed, the undersea monsters could be replenished at any time.
Tusoteuthis was not called the East's greatest military asset for nothing.
"We still have more than half our force left!"
So they continued the pursuit with confidence—
Kuuung-!
In an instant, the sea shook.
A shock wave that exploded underwater differed from an explosion on the surface. Compressed air struck in every direction like a gigantic hammer, and the undersea monsters surrounding the Tusoteuthises burst apart in an instant.
Like ants crushed beneath a person's foot. Half the monsters had been torn apart by the pressure generated by dozens of depth charges.
Naturally, the monster handlers were not unharmed either.
"Gaaaaaah!?"
"Ghk, ghurk..."
"Gweeeek...!"
The handlers controlling the small undersea monster groups all vomited and frantically scratched at their heads. The sensation of their bodies being finely shredded by the blast pressure was not something the human mind could endure.
It might have been bearable if only one or two monsters were lost, but the entire groups they controlled had melted away.
In the end, half the handlers collapsed beneath pain that had gone beyond their limits.
The Tusoteuthises' handlers were no different. Their thick hides allowed them to withstand the blast pressure of the depth charges, but that was all—they had merely endured it.
The shock was borne entirely by the handlers.
"Ghk!?"
Vomiting blood, they instinctively led the formation deeper into the sea.
There was something on the surface. Something dropped from above had smashed the monster formation.
So they would go deeper into the water and recover.
That was what they thought.
The medium-depth depth charges dropped by the second air raid detonated at that very moment.
Kuu-ung!
Massive shock waves and pressure erupting from every direction engulfed the wounded undersea monster formation.
The monsters that had barely managed to hold on beneath the Tusoteuthises' bellies were crushed and disappeared just like that.
What remained was a Tusoteuthis that had lost three-quarters of its undersea monster formation.
And waiting to welcome them were forty submarines lying in ambush.