Chapter 1481: Landing on the Island — Battle Begins
9:20 a.m., fifth day of operations.
Thick fog erupted from nowhere around the floating island. Clear sky became darkness. Visibility collapsed to a few dozen meters.
The Illusion Boundary. Everyone in headquarters understood it at once — three days of transit, and the real battle had just begun.
The room went still. Every eye locked onto the screens. Even Sylvie’s Magic Eyes found nothing beyond that grey curtain, and the unknowing of it was its own weight, something the First Army’s senior officers had not carried in a very long time. They were soldiers accustomed to information, to preparation, to ground already measured before the first step was taken. This was different.
Then a sound reached them. Faint at first, from no direction in particular.
A crow’s caw.
Ferlin and the others exchanged glances. They were above open sea. There were no crows.
But it wasn’t an auditory trick. More sounds folded in behind the first, layering and overlapping until no single cry could be separated from the mass. The cawing swelled into something ambient, almost architectural — a sound with walls to it.
A staff officer went pale. “Those are sea ghosts.”
“Sea ghosts?” someone said. “The legend?”
“Not legends.” The officer’s voice was controlled, barely. “I worked Festive Harbor years ago. The old seamen there — when they described sea ghosts, they called them crows of the sea.”
“Stop making a fuss.” Hackzord had his arms folded and his expression locked into something between contempt and patience. “These are the lowest constructs of the Sky-sea Realm. Their only advantage is numbers. In a moment, you will see what kind of enemy my race has been fighting for centuries—”
The fog thinned. The runway materialized beneath it, then the sky beyond, dark but stable. The sea was something else entirely.
No one spoke.
The surface of the ocean was black. Not dark — black, and moving. Countless sea ghosts held their heads above the water, a mass so dense that the individual shapes dissolved into texture, into an impression of swarming, of hive-minded pressure that stretched to every horizon visible through the screens. Beneath them the water itself had been displaced by bodies, turned the color of deep bruises. If someone had taken a pond full of tadpoles and scaled it to the size of a sea — that was the image — but a pond bred no real dread, and this did.
Beyond the black surface, the Bottomless Land appeared. Similar in footprint to Sleeping Island. No lakes. Impossibly, defiantly green, as though the world had never heard of the battle converging around it.
Then the Nest Mothers surfaced.
They spread the bone ribs along their backs and launched torrents of viscous green liquid skyward. The underside of the floating island was hammered by acid rain, a continuous percussion that would have dissolved a conventional fleet to nothing. Against the North Slope Mine’s stone underbelly, it left only stains.
“A total of 1,524.” Eleanor’s voice entered everyone’s heads, unhurried.
Iron Axe looked up. “You mean—”
“Acid Nest Mothers.” The same languid tone she always used, as though tallying seabirds. “That’s fewer than the shells we have.”
The cannons answered her.
A 152mm Longsong Cannon launched, the shell crossing nearly a thousand meters before it punched through a Nest Mother and detonated inside. The creature came apart. Sea ghosts around it were folded into the blast radius, and where their bodies struck the water, the splashes bloomed not black but a cold corpse-blue. Then the autocannon turrets opened in sequence, and the space beneath the island became a killing corridor — iron and fire and the shriek of machine guns stitching across the surface of the sea in long raking bursts.
The sound obliterated the cawing.
Hackzord’s expression did not change, but something complicated had entered it. He had spent centuries watching races fail each other, fail the fight against the Sky-sea Realm, fail the long war by fighting it separately. What he was watching now was different. Legacies combined produced effects none of them had arrived at alone.
He did not say this. He kept it.
“Get the Aerial Knights ready for takeoff.” Tilly raised the transmitter.
The biplanes rolled from the hangars and formed up — not for a decisive strike but for endurance, for the sustained work of cutting supply lines and suppressing reinforcement corridors, of being everywhere the ground forces could not be and nowhere the sky was unchallenged. They would split into dozens of squadrons and circle over the Bottomless Land for as long as fuel allowed. The Sky-sea Realm had a weakness: it was at its worst in the air. The Aerial Knights existed to exploit that fully.
At 10:40 a.m., Eleanor brought the floating island across the threshold and into the Bottomless Land’s perimeter.
The monsters below surged toward the island in their thousands, climbing over the bodies of those already killed, wholly indifferent to the deaths of their own kind. Eleanor had dropped their altitude deliberately — low enough to goad them into attempting the climb, high enough to keep the machine guns in their optimal arc. Few made it past the first barrage. None made it past the second.
Away from the island’s western approach, everywhere else was quieter. The fortress had become a gravity well for the enemy’s attention.
Anna turned to Hackzord. “Begin.”
He snapped his fingers and was gone.
Atop the command bridge, Primal Chaos — persuaded by Silent Disaster into this posting, not happily — released his power. Through the amplification of the Infinite Sigil, his magic sight swept across the island’s surface below.
The screens showed it happening: blade beasts, invisible until this moment, materializing out of empty ground as the concealment was stripped away. Their outlines warped into visibility as if something were pulling them up through the floor.
And Sky Lord appeared at the Bottomless Land’s edge.
He looked up at the sinkhole above.
He had not taken out the five-colored magic stone. He didn’t need to — the glow gathered there lived in memory with sufficient clarity. That first arrival, the beauty of the accumulated power, the sense of something predetermined. He had known then, in some way he hadn’t fully examined, that this day was inevitable. The Battle of Divine Will had been heading toward its conclusion since before he understood it was moving. And now, at the threshold of it, the feeling that had settled in him was not what he would have predicted.
It wasn’t so bad. Allying with humans. It wasn’t what he would have chosen, but it wasn’t what he’d feared either.
He permitted himself nothing so large as sentiment.
Hackzord raised his hand and wrenched open a massive Distortion Door.
Chapter 1481 - Landing on the Island For Battle Begins
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
9:20 a.m. on the fifth day of the beginning of the battle.
Thick fog rose up around the floating island suddenly, and the originally clear skies suddenly turned dark. The visibility dropped to about dozens of meters.
It’s coming!
Everyone at headquarters realized that they were passing the “Illusion Boundary” mentioned by Hackzord. Although it was already the third day since they began taking action, the true battle was ushered in at this moment!
The massive room was silent. Everyone’s eyes were staring at the screen intently, their bodies standing straight and tense. Even Sylvie’s Magic Eyes were unable to see through the layers of obstruction. This meant that they were faced with an unknown region up ahead. Regardless of what fate had in stall for them, they could only wait till the final moment to know.
To the higher-ups of the First Army who were accustomed to having full information and preparation, the unease they felt was something they had not experienced in a very long time.
Suddenly, a faint crow’s caw sounded in everyone’s ears.
Ferlin and company exchanged looks.
They were above the sea, so how could there be a crow?
But it wasn’t an auditory hallucination. Soon, more sounds were added into the mix. They overlapped each other, making everyone unsure of what kind of echo it was or if they had encountered a massive flock of crows.
In minutes, the cawing blended into a whole and was indistinguishable from one other. It also became louder.
A staff member suddenly had a change in expression. “Those are the cries of sea ghosts!”
“Sea ghosts?” someone asked. “The legendary creatures?”
( B oxnovel.c om ) “No, they aren’t legends! I once worked at Festive Harbor. When the old seamen there talk about sea ghosts, they would describe them as crows of the sea!”
“Humph, stop making a fuss.” Hackzord had his arms crossed. “This is just the lowest constructs of the Sky-sea Realm. Their only advantage is their numbers. They are most suitable for filling the battlefield. In a while, you will see what kind of enemy my race has always been battling—”
As Sky Lord was speaking, the thickness of the fog suddenly thinned. The runway on the floating island rapidly became visible to the naked eye, and following that, the sky and sea which were further into the distance. The sky remained dark, but it looked normal at the very least. However, the scene over the sea was completely different.
Everyone who saw the scene on the screen could not help but tremble.
It was definitely an unforgettable sight.
Countless sea ghosts propped up their heads over the sea as they cawed at the floating island. It was as though dense black pores had bloomed on the sea surface. Just sweeping across it with one’s eyes left one’s scalp tingling. The bodies which were floating beneath the water made the seawater appear a strange black color. If a description was necessary, they appeared like a nest of tadpoles in a puddle, but filling a puddle wasn’t anything to marvel about. To dye the entire sea black was truly considered rare.
And the rumored Bottomless Land appeared in front of the floating island. Its size was similar to Sleeping Island. There were no signs of lakes on it, but it
appeared luxuriantly green. It didn’t look anything like an isolated island in the ocean.
Soon, out of the black sea ghosts surfaced the figures of Nest Mothers. They opened the rib bones on their backs and spewed out blobs of green, sticky liquid skyward! Instantly, it appeared as though toxic rain was striking the bottom of the floating island. If the humans’ vanguard was not the North Slope Mine, but a regular fleet, the outcome was obvious.
“A total of 1,524.” Eleanor’s voice suddenly entered everyone’s mind.
“Are you referring to…” Iron Axe said in surprise.
“The number of Acid Nest Mothers.” She used her usual languid voice in a reply. “That’s not more than the shells we have.”
Just as she said that, a series of salvos sounded from the bottom of the floating island!
The first to launch a counterattack was Eleanor.
A 152mm Longsong Cannon shot out a shell and, after flying nearly a thousand meters, it accurately plunged into the body of a Nest Mother. After the shell tore through the organs, it exploded, blasting the Nest Mother into two! Meanwhile, the sea ghosts around it were also implicated by the explosion. The flying shells left a dense array of splashes across the sea, but this time, it was no longer black but a ghostly blue due to the blood.
In half a month, the engineering team’s greatest modification to the floating island was the addition of a series of cannons affixed to the bottom. It was equipped with a full array of weaponry, going from 20mm autocannons to the biggest Longsong Cannons. After all, the Sky-sea Realm’s main advantage was in the sea. Without the need for anti-air defenses, increasing the bottom’s firepower was naturally the First Army’s top priority.
At that moment, the floating island was an aerial battleship, and one that was equipped with a fire control processing machine.
Under Eleanor’s control, even more of the autocannon turrets joined in the shooting. Instantly, the area beneath the island turned into a land of death where iron met flesh!
The salvo and the sweeping of the machine guns created a symphony that drowned out the sea ghosts’ wails.
Although Hackzord maintained his composure, his expression had unknowingly turned complicated. Clearly, he had also realized that when the legacies of various races were combined together, it would generate astonishing effects.
“Get the Aerial Knights to prepare for take off,” Tilly picked up a transmitter and said.
According to the plan, the Aerial Knights were not in charge of being the decisive force in the operation. They were to be split into dozens of squadrons and circle above the Bottomless Land for prolonged periods of time. They would cut off any support and attack the enemy’s main forces, so as to reduce the pressure on the ground forces. These were all missions that the Aerial Knights had to shoulder. They had to take full advantage of the Sky-sea Realm’s weakest characteristic.
Moments later, biplanes filled with fuel rolled out of the hangar and got into position.
At 10:40 a.m., Eleanor steered the floating island into the island’s confines. The number of monsters that had been attracted by this colossal object was uncountable. They trampled over the dismembered corpses of their own kind, swarming towards the floating island, completely unfazed that they were unable to deal any damage to the floating island.
Of course, this also had to do with Eleanor deliberately lowering their altitude to entice the enemy into attempting to climb up the island. However, with the machine guns’ sweeping fire, breaking through the net of destruction was not something easily achievable.
Compared to the explosive western front, the other places appeared a lot more quiet. Clearly, the approaching floating fortress had attracted most of the enemy’s attention.
“Let’s begin,” Anna turned her head to Hackzord and said.
The latter snapped his fingers and vanished from the headquarters.
Meanwhile, Primal Chaos, who had been convinced by Silent Disaster and had no choice but to entrench himself at the top of the bridge, released his powers. Through the augmentation of the Infinite Sigil, the magic power that allowed for sight swept across the sky above the island.
Through the screen, the headquarters in headquarters clearly saw that what appeared to be empty ground was filled with blade beasts. Their distorted outlines slowly took form, as though they were being pulled out of their hiding spots.
The next moment, Sky Lord appeared at the boundary of the Bottomless Land.
He looked up to where the sinkhole was. Even without taking out the fivecolored magic stone, he could recall the beautiful sight he had seen when he first arrived.
“Fate as determined by God?”
Perhaps from the moment he witnessed the magic glow gathered here, the ending of the Battle of Divine Will had stopped marching towards eternity. This day was inevitable. But when this moment really came, he realized that the feeling of allying with humans wasn’t that bad.
Hackzord sneered as he waved his hand, pulling open a massive Distortion Door!