Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 79 Tide
"Cannon fire?! Where are they firing?!" Winters was suddenly startled and stood up on the swaying boat, looking back.

But the situation deteriorated so quickly that he had no time to think. Deafening shouts erupted from the shore, and the dragging iron chains rattled as a red and black line slowly rose from the seabed, forming a natural downward arc that blocked the waist of the gourd-shaped bay.

Winters couldn't help but curse, and the soldiers sitting on the small boat also noticed the strange thing behind them, causing an uproar.

The iron chains blocking the sea divided the Venetians into two parts; Chiliu Island was feigning surrender!
Turn back? Or switch sides and attack the second fortress? Or speed up and head straight for the dock? What should we do?
All the men of the 100, aboard their small boats, looked toward Winters. Even Bard and Andrei were watching him. They were waiting for the centurion's orders.

Winters broke out in a cold sweat. He had spent most of his life obeying orders, but now he was suddenly responsible for the lives of hundreds. A sense of panic washed over him. Each of the three choices had its advantages and disadvantages; he truly didn't know which was the best option.

However, the panic lasted only a breath. Winters regained his composure; a sense of responsibility overwhelmed all unease. Even the dumbest command was better than no command at all! He gritted his teeth, decided to abandon the mission, and roared, "Turn around..."

"Charge forward!" Contel's voice came from the small boat beside him. The lieutenant colonel waved his arms vigorously, shouting repeatedly, "Charge forward! Charge forward..."

With his superior taking over command, Winters was somewhat relieved that he no longer had to think. He activated the amplification spell, broadcasting Lieutenant Colonel Contel's order across the sea: "Charge forward!"

The soldiers awaiting orders seemed to be infused with new life. Andrei raised the battle flag above his head and waved it frantically, while Bad grabbed an extra oar and joined the soldiers rowing.

The bewildered sailors instinctively obeyed Winters' magically amplified voice. The leading naval officer shouted angrily, but he was not the spellcaster, and his voice was drowned out by the sound of gunfire.

The larger the caliber of the cannon, the more laborious the loading process. However, after the eight heavy cannon shots, the concealed artillery positions did not fall silent; the sounds of more light artillery began to rise. The Venetta fleet, recovering from the shock of the surprise attack, also began to retaliate.

Winters, no longer concerned with the fierce battle behind him, sent a group of men armed with muskets and crossbows to the shore, where they began firing at the Venetians on the small boats.

The small boat carrying the three warrant officers was at the very front, flying a military flag. On board were three other men wearing gleaming armor, making them the most conspicuous and exposed.

Most of the musketeers and crossbowmen on the shore noticed the small boat, and bullets came flying in one after another. Everyone else on board ducked down as low as they could.

Only Andrei was not intimidated; instead, he defiantly raised his military flag even higher and began to hurl insults at the Tanirians on the shore.

Not content with just verbal abuse, and seemingly worried that the Tanilians might not hear his greetings from too far away, Andrei, in a fit of rage, actually started unzipping his pants and urinating on the shore.

Winters grabbed him and pulled him down: "Are you crazy? Don't be stupid!"

"Hahaha..." Andrei laughed wildly and said to Winters, "The Tanirians' marksmanship is terrible, they can't hit me."

"You are crazy!"

"I'm telling you, I'm not afraid of you or me! Soldiers aren't afraid!"

Winters looked at the other five soldiers on the ship; Andrei's boldness and contempt for the Tanirians had infected them. Instead of trying to hide under the gunwale, they leaned out and rowed with all their might.

"Cannons!" a sailor on the other ship exclaimed.

A large group of Tanirians were seen working together to lift two light cannons closer to the shore. The Venetians' small boats were less than seventy meters from the coast, and the shrapnel could turn the water into hell.

"Now we're sitting ducks!" Andrei angrily punched his thigh. "Shoot! Shoot as hard as you can!"

Winters also saw the two cannons, but his breathing rate began to decrease and his thoughts began to become clearer.

He instinctively entered spellcasting mode, his attention extremely focused. However, he didn't use magic; instead, he took out the container holding the spellcasting materials.

The standard spellcasting materials and equipment issued to spellcaster officers are of a uniform design, so Winters immediately found what he was looking for.

Several small containers with metal outer shells and glass inner liner.

Now was not the time to be stingy with spellcasting materials, so Winters took out all four containers.

All spells cast by the Alliance spellcasters are essentially reverse engineered versions of the spells of the court mages of the Muro Empire.

The "poison smoke technique" caused great suffering to the militia in the Sovereignty War. Using poisonous smoke to kill the bastion defenders and using non-poisonous smoke to block the artillery's firing range before launching an attack to capture the fortress has always been a specialty of the Imperial Army.

The Magic Operations Department has yet to crack the poisonous smoke spell, but the non-poisonous smoke spell has been successfully replicated.

After pulling out the stopper from the metal container, Winters entered a spellcasting state and unleashed a long-unpracticed fire spell on the substance inside the container.

First, a wisp of blue smoke appeared, then increasingly thick white smoke billowed from the container. The white smoke wasn't enough to poison anyone, but it still made the people on the ship cough incessantly.

Winters, who was closest to the victim, should have been the most uncomfortable, but he seemed oblivious and repeated the process three more times.

Winters then grabbed a small bucket from the boat, put four smoking metal containers inside, and with all his might pushed the bucket into the water toward the shore.

Using standard spellcasting materials provided by the Magic Warfare Bureau, Alliance spellcasters can reproduce the effects of the Imperial court mages' "Smoke Spell".

Winters didn't know what was inside those metal containers—the contents of valuable alchemical products. He only knew that casting a fire spell on the substances inside would produce thick smoke, and that was enough.

Swordsmen don't need to know how to forge iron, spellcasters don't need to understand alchemy, and users don't need to know the principles; they just need to know how to use it.

These metal containers are officially called "Activated Portable Alchemical Smoke Generators," but the officer spellcasters simply refer to them as "smoke bombs."

This is the Smoke spell from the Senas Alliance version. Although we don't know how the original spell was implemented by the Court Wizard, the effect is the same, which is enough for the Magic Warfare Bureau.

Thick smoke billowed towards the eastern coast, creating a smokescreen between the Tanirians on the shore and the Venetians on the ships, obstructing the firing range of long-range weapons.

The small boat was partially obscured by the smoke, and the Tanilians on the shore could only fire haphazardly, greatly reducing the pressure on Winters' small boat.

"Why didn't you use it sooner!" Andrei excitedly punched Winters.

"I used up all four smoke grenades of two loads at once, and now I don't know what to use to attack the bastion," Winters said with a bitter smile, his eyes red from the smoke and tears streaming down his face.

"Why haven't the cannons in the fortress fired yet?" Bard, who had been silently rowing, suddenly spoke up.

The oarsmen exerted all their strength, and the thirty-odd small boats glided swiftly across the bay. Winters estimated that he was less than four hundred meters from the dock, and the cannons, each weighing over a pound, had already hit the boats.

However, the bastion remained silent.

Winters' heart sank. The bastion's commander was either frighteningly calm, waiting to let the Venetians get close and teach them a lesson, or the Tanirians had ample troops and didn't want to waste gunpowder.

It's also possible that they moved all the artillery to the newly built fortifications... Is that really possible?
Winters looked toward the small boat that Lieutenant Colonel Contair was riding in. What was he thinking as his commander led his men toward utter doom?

——Cut——

With the concealed second fortress baring its fangs, the situation at the bay entrance fortress, occupied by António's guards, was also in grave danger.

The fortifications were designed primarily to defend against enemies from the sea, rather than to protect against attacks from land.

The Tanirians, who had initially yielded and left the fortress, turned and launched a fierce attack. The outnumbered enemy guards engaged in a brutal battle inside the fortress, with the standard-bearer on the top tier desperately waving his flag for reinforcements. "What the hell is going on?!" The usually impeccably gentlemanly Naresha grabbed the Red Irrawaddy envoy by the collar and, unusually, swore.

"I...I don't know either!" The envoy was pale, sweating profusely, and looked terrified. "It's a misunderstanding, it's all a misunderstanding."

Enraged, Lieutenant General Nareshaw slammed a fist into the messenger's nose: "This is a misunderstanding, isn't it?"

Then came an even harder punch: "This is a fucking misunderstanding?!"

The messenger was almost knocked unconscious, blood rushed into his trachea, and he kept coughing up blood.

“Sir!” Antonio stopped the enraged Naresha. His face showed no trace of the satisfaction of saying ‘I told you so,’ only calm and restraint. “Spare his life. There are more important things to do now! Send my men ashore and take this fortress at once!”

The deck of the Glorious was in an uproar. The officers ordered the sailors to return to their posts, the trainee officers ran to fetch gunpowder, and several cannons had already returned fire, with acrid smoke filling the air around the Glorious.

The entire fleet was thrown into chaos. Some ships tried to turn around and leave but were blocked at the back, while others tried to retaliate with their cannons but had their firing range blocked by friendly ships.

Naresha, panting, stared at the deck beneath his feet and said, "No! There are no more ships."

"What do you mean by saying there's no ship?" Antonio was also getting a little impatient.

“The team sent to capture the bastion has taken most of the small boats. The fleet’s remaining small boats can carry a maximum of two hundred men. If the two hundred men cannot take down the fortress, the fleet will be trapped here!” Nareshaw said, panting. “The wind is not right. We need to use the remaining small boats to tow the large ships out of here.”

Then, the admiral regained his usual composed demeanor: "Mr. Karaman!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Lower all the remaining small boats! Tether the large ship around and get out of here!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Let the galleys go out first! Let the sailors of the White Eagle swim to the fort at the entrance to the bay!"

"Yes, sir!"

Karaman saluted and swiftly left the bow.

"Why not let the troop transports beach themselves?" Antonio refrained from questioning Naresha in front of his subordinates.

“No, St. Ciri is a beach, and the shore here is full of rocks. The boat will sink before it even reaches the shore, and we’ll have to swim across, which would make us easy targets!” Nareshaw explained quickly.

Antonio remained silent.

“The fortifications at the bay entrance won’t hold either; there’s definitely another chain there!” Naresha said through gritted teeth. “The Tanirians have gone to great lengths; they’re definitely not just trying to wipe out your hundred-man squad! If we don’t leave now, the entire fleet will be locked in the bay! We have to save the fleet!”

"General Serbiati!" Naresha addressed Antonio, who was more than ten years younger than him, with the highest honorific for the first time. The admiral said with grief, "Your men cannot be saved, and neither can mine. This is my responsibility, and I will not shirk it. But I have no selfish motives now; the fleet must leave here immediately."

Antonio understood that the admiral was right; the most urgent task was to get out of the ambush as soon as possible. As the commander of the legion, he had to put the survival of the legion above all else.

The corps commander of Grand Vinetta reluctantly agreed to the admiral's order to retreat.

Amidst the continuous exchange of artillery fire, the fleet began rescuing the sailors who had abandoned ship, turning them around with the help of small boats, and preparing to leave.

The Tanirians brought out dozens of fireboats converted from canoes, and Veneta's sailors, biting daggers, jumped into the sea, where a brutal battle ensued.

Inside the fortified positions at the entrance to the bay, the bloody hand-to-hand combat continued.

António watched as the Hundredth Man's small boat rowed toward Chili Port, getting closer and closer to the dock.

The waters in the bay, which were originally calm and still, began to become turbulent.

Winters, aboard the small boat, also noticed this; the sea seemed to be changing its mood, and the boat began to rock.

"Is something wrong?" Winters asked, puzzled, looking at the increasingly turbulent water.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, something incredible happened: the waves actually changed direction and surged from the shore into the open sea.

The small boat, which was approaching the dock, suddenly stopped moving and was swept backward by the waves.

However, the abnormality did not end there. The sea, which should have been calm in the harbor, was now filled with waves that were getting higher and higher, and they were all rolling out of the harbor from the direction of the dock.

"God! What is that?!" a sailor cried out in terror.

The surging seawater ahead formed a wall of water as high as three meters, with rolling waves surging and roaring, whipping up thousands of white foams that crashed against the Venetians' small boat.

Several large ships in Venetta's fleet, located a kilometer away from the small boat, also lost control and were pushed and shoved together by the huge wave.

After this huge wave, even the seawater on the shore receded three meters from its original position.

The sea surface inexplicably returned to calm, and the seawater surged back to its original position.

The Venetians' small boats all capsized.

Winters was thrown into the sea, the salty water blinding him. His heavy armor and weapons held him back, pulling him deeper into the water.

The water pressure was increasing, and he was almost suffocating. He desperately told himself not to choke, not to choke, but seawater still rushed into his nostrils, followed by more seawater.

In the merciless sea, Winters struggled to remove his helmet, fumbled to unfasten his breastplate, and threw his sword and pistol into the sea.

However, it was no use; he continued to sink.

He suddenly remembered: "That's right, I can't swim... so what am I struggling for?"

He was actually no longer able to think; extreme oxygen deprivation had robbed him of his ability to think.

When he stopped thinking, a pair of large hands grabbed his clothes and swam towards the shore.

This chapter introduces two new spells: Smoke and (crossed out). As mentioned in previous chapters, spellcasting talent is not affected by gender. That is, the probability of a male spellcaster is the same as the probability of a female spellcaster. Most male spellcasters in Cenas were trained as officers, but what about the female spellcasters? The answer is still in the previous chapters: most female spellcasters were trained as alchemists. The Magic Warfare Bureau established two systems: spellcasting and alchemy. Most fire-based spells rely on alchemical products as casting materials.

Thank you to the readers who voted for the book before: writersblock, righteousness and purity are koalas, and Ami. Thank you.

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(End of this chapter)