The exchange of fire was tremendously quick.
Even as the Eun City's Mothership volley of fire was like a battle orchestra riding on the thunder clouds with their sea crew screaming at each other, giving out the orders to fire from their higher ups. The tremendous series of firing was a spectacle to watch from the side sh.i.p.s as they systematically released the cannon balls. The volley consisted of at least twenty over cannon balls towards Stalingrad but even the most thunderous sounds were nothing without the strength of the lightning.
Their cannonball hits did not even make a dent on Stalingrad at all. Their cannons literally bounced off from the metal platings of the battleship and dropped into the sea like a piece of useless paperweight.
Lord Wolte thought that those cannon balls were mere nudging as it felt that it tickles a little with no significant damage done to him. He expected the human city's naval fleets to be more challenging like the time he suffered under Lord Focalor's assault during the Pandapolis War but it seems that he had severely underestimated them. The previous damage, while not extensive, had shown that the demons were using cannon balls infused with a high level of elemental magic.
Thus, Lord Wolte believed that the humans with their cunningness would prepare something even more sinister than the demons since they always would like to find the weakness of their enemies. But it seemed like his current foe had not studied enough against his ship. To Wolte, the human armies' cannon balls that were fired out were nothing spectacular and totally short of his expectations.
It was simply just gunpowder and a heavy ball of iron flying out of it.
There was no magic infused into the cannon balls and their supposed barrage of attacks did absolutely nothing to Stalingrad. It was to the point that Lord Wolte worried almost for nothing.
The meteors, on the other hand, proved to be more of a threat. When they first emerged from the skies, Stalingrad was able to counter a few with its anti air capabilities and breaking the meteor rocks apart. However, as they began to grow in numbers because of the simultaneous casting from the mages, Lord Wolte had no choice but to call out magic dispellers within Lord Focalor's crew of demon pirates. With the help of his online navigation systems, the magic dispellers made quick work of the meteors.
After all, the Naval battles were more deadly than land battles. They needed to have the skill of sword and magic while fighting along with deadly cannon balls, sh.i.p.s crashing on another while fighting on an unstable platform and nasty sea weather to boot if they were unlucky. Their past experience raiding various armies had made Lord Focalor's crew be well equipped with the necessary set of skills to defend a battleship.
While some of the meteor strikes were able to hit the ship at first, the damage was almost negligible as the pirates quickly sortie out to not only repair but counter those magical meteors. But most of the dispelling required a significant amount of time because the mage needed to do some mental calculation to ensure that the dispel was able to cast directly on the magical projectile itself. It was no easy task for most of anti magic mages and many usually die before they could counter a spell properly.
However, Anti Magic Mages' combat prowess to stop a magic attack was nothing short of a lifesaver. Sh.i.p.s were after all a mechanical floating island that required the effort of everyone on it. Even if they could stop a magic attack, it was akin to proloning the life of the ship's existence. Yet, Stalingrad was able to survive this long was also mainly due to the assistance of the System.
With the System's support, most of the anti magic mages could easily calculate the trajectory, the exact amount of mana needed to counter it and had miniscular details and information that could optimise the destruction of said offensive magic with the minimum amount of mana required. This incredible feat of dispelling magic caused Lebar City's mages to be in disbelief. Unable to accept the fact that their magic could be dispelled this easily, they wanted to summon a larger meteor through group chanting to counter the mass dispel they had seen.
But they did not have that luxury of time in their midst as the Mothersh.i.p.s of all three cities were being targeted by Stalingrad's heavy cannon fire. Explosive shells were more than sufficient since most of the cities' naval sh.i.p.s were made out of wood. As the shells impacted the sh.i.p.s, the explosion was sufficient to catch the ship on fire and that kept the naval crew busy, trying their best to stop the fire from spreading.
However, the naval crews had no idea that Stalingrad's shells were able to penetrate deep into their Mothership and exploded right in the middle of their sh.i.p.s, causing fires to be spread widely and blocking exits. (They probably have those emergency fire evacuation plans but when things went to shit, nobody would be bothered following them)
As for Eun City's Mothership, their damage was even more extensive due to the fact that one of the explosive shells incidentally reached the compartment where they kept their crates of gunpowder. (Also because they were nearer compared to the other two Mothersh.i.p.s and Lord Focalor personally devoted a few extra explosives shells towards such a nearby target.) This naturally caused secondary explosions which were probably why Eun City's Mothership burst into flames that were worthy for Peppers to pass a sympathetic judgement. And with no chance to repair the mothership, the Eun City's Naval Admiral had to promptly make the call to abandon ship.
Lord Focalor also took this opportunity of shock and awe to send out the missiles that were previously targeting the fleet's back when the other crews saw one of the Naval Fleet's mothership destroyed right in their eyes. The roaring thunder that emerged out of Stalingrad sent waves of chills through the hardiest of sailors as they saw the trail of smoke flying up to the sky and passing through the front part of their fleet.
The subsequent successive explosions of their fleet's backline had scared the wits of their mind even further that many felt this assault had become a death wish. Stalingrad was no mere empty metal vessel that was unable to move, it was practically a sea fortress guarding the Demopolis walls.
However, some of the sailors did not falter when they now knew that retreat was not an option. Thus, they began turning their sh.i.p.s to fire at Stalingrad in a desperate effort to sink it while Kemban City had decided to ram their siege sh.i.p.s against the Devil's battleship in order to sink it.
As for those who had abandoned their sh.i.p.s from the explosions, another level of terror awaits them as Mr Derpy, the Shadow Dagon sent out his Deep Ones to clean up the rest of the mess.
The Deep One's speed in swimming increased with the new gear that they were wearing and the humans were almost helpless against them. While the monsters liked to use their new shiny weapons, most of the Deep Ones merely used their traditional technique of grabbing a leg to drown the men. Only a few managed to fend for themselves within the water because of their magical abilities but most of them were mere mortals with no powers. Their meaningless struggle for air and survival was futile as the Deep Ones pulled them further into the oceans of Demopolis.
Unfortunately, the magically inclined had a worse fate compared to the men that died in their watery grave. The Deep Ones' appearance within the dark murky sea waters was nothing but dull yellow glowing eyes and rough green scales with their claws and teeth emerging out of it.
Those men who drowned at least do not have much knowledge of their deaths but for the mages, they saw the nightmarish terror of an army of Deep Ones hunting down each and every human that had contact with the oceans.
Fear was not the word, but rather pure despair. It made them panic and tried to cast spells underwater to break the hold of their grapple.
But the Deep Ones gave no mercy.
