Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 806 The Mystery of the "Big Fish"

dong dong dong-

A dull knocking sound suddenly rang out from the porthole of the alchemy submersible, startling the soldiers who had been keeping silent inside.

When Quincy hurried to the window, he found the navigator floating outside gesturing at him.

This is the sixth batch of navigators to be rotated off the surface during the three-day deployment. Although the abyssal sea creatures are born with the ability to stay active in deep water for long periods of time, they still need to rest and eat. Once their physical strength reaches its limit, they have no choice but to return to the surface to recuperate.

【Is there something going on?】

Quincy used a unique set of sign language prepared in advance by the Navy to ask the soldiers outside, but the response he received was unclear...

[A target has approached the main river fork; it is not yet confirmed whether it is a demonic lizard!]

Should we launch an interception attack?

The young lieutenant thought for less than a few seconds before decisively shaking his head and rejecting the navigator's suggestion... The Lizardmen's floating island fortress had not yet shown any trace, and if they rashly attacked a few scattered enemies, they would only expose the submarine itself, and such impulsiveness would be counterproductive.

Moreover, the target's identity has not yet been fully confirmed. After all, on the first night of their silent patrol, some large underground fish were seen swimming back and forth at the main waterway branch, almost accidentally triggering a pre-laid minefield. It was only thanks to the navigator's timely intervention that they were driven away quickly.

The underground river is not a lifeless stagnant body of water; many aquatic creatures of all sizes still live and reproduce in its wide main channel.

[Send three navigators to confirm and ensure that the minefield is not accidentally triggered by large fish...]

Just as Quincy finished signing, a muffled boom suddenly came from the waterway in the distance!

The explosion wasn't deafening; it was more like a shockwave. This shockwave traveled extremely quickly through the water, making it immediately noticeable to submarines in direct contact with the water.

The ship, which had been secured to the cliff face of the underground river with grappling hooks, was hit by the water waves and immediately began to vibrate violently... Then came a series of "crackling" metallic squeezing sounds, which sounded both jarring and terrifying to the soldiers inside.

More than one mine was triggered and exploded!

Quincy's mind immediately went into overdrive. Without even glancing at the navigator being swept away by the waves outside the boat, he turned and shouted to the rest of the soldiers, "Attention! Immediately lift the silence! Bombardiers fire a volley of Radiant Magic Stones at the minefield; we need sufficient visibility!"

Even if a blind sturgeon, which is only a little over half a meter long and commonly found in the area, accidentally wandered into a minefield, it would be impossible for it to make such a commotion!
Whoosh whoosh—

Another friendly ship, less than a hundred meters away from Quincy's vessel, launched a string of luminous magic stones almost simultaneously. The tiny, star-like points of shimmering white light scattered outwards, illuminating the dark waters as they slowly sank.

Through the ship's gleaming observation porthole, Quincy could almost immediately see the general situation of the minefield several hundred meters away.

Dozens of slender, twisted black figures were positioned at the edge of the minefield, seemingly caught off guard by the sudden underwater explosion, their formation shattered by the ripples.

The skin that reflected no light under the glowing white magic stone, the swollen head and limb joints... and the black water weapons that were transformed into chains to drag something!

It was a force of about a hundred Lizardmen!

These guys will never venture into the border region alone! They must have large, mobile supply bases behind them... otherwise, once the Blackwater runs out, they'll be nothing more than fish on a chopping board.

Therefore… the location of the floating island fortress is self-evident. “Immediately send a message to ground command requesting fire support! Simultaneously, notify the remaining garrison ships to prepare for engagement!”

In the cramped space of the submarine, as Quincy issued clear and unambiguous orders, all the soldiers began to move in an orderly manner.

Amidst the resolute responses, one could hear the trembling and tightness in many voices, but more so the excitement and fervor of being about to engage in battle, rather than the fear and timidity before the fight.

The navigators, who had just been separated by the waves, regrouped beside their respective ships, fully focused on preparing for the upcoming battle.

Similarly, the demon lizardmen sensed intense magical fluctuations the moment the human submarines broke silence, quickly pinpointing their location. Several black lizard soldiers patrolling the edge of the formation decisively left, conjuring black crystal spears in their hands as they charged towards the leading submarine.

hum-

The magic gun made very little noise when fired in the water, but the speed of the magic stone bullets was not affected at all. Several enemies were hit almost instantly, their bodies jolted violently, and then they spurted out a thick stream of black water before slowly falling downwards.

Scattered enemies were easily dealt with by the navigators, a team of fifteen, without even the ships needing to fire their weapons. Their purpose was not only to guide and calibrate the submarines in the dark, but also to serve as sentries and snipers, compensating for the ship's combat disadvantage when a single hostile target got close.

Two more rounds of Radiant Magic Stones were launched, and then Quincy's ship fired the first Alchemy Torpedo at the enemy. A spindle-shaped black shadow shot out from the launch port, but it did not aim at the center of the group of Lizardmen warriors directly in front of it.

Instead, it flew almost along the edge of their formation, heading straight for the dark area behind them that the Light Magic Stone Bullet couldn't illuminate.

Boom!

The flash of light from the explosion was fleeting, followed by more ships launching torpedoes, aiming at the enemy's rear along the same path.

Then, an increasingly frequent series of explosions followed.

Clumps of dark red instantly merged into one, slowly revealing the enormous figure hidden behind the demonic lizard warrior.

"I knew it! These guys are outposts responsible for scouting and navigation; the floating fortress must be not far behind them!"

Compared to the colossal floating island of the Demon Lizard, their mere twenty submarines seem insignificant. However, reinforcements dispatched by the ground command are about to arrive, bringing with them fifty submarines with heavy torpedoes and a pre-deployed mine defense network. If all goes well, they should be able to easily cripple the floating island at this main waterway junction.

Once the floating island fortress loses its mobility, the demon lizard soldiers carried on it will inevitably be unable to advance any further and will be forced to leave the floating island and return by the original route, or choose to land directly on the ground and fight the humans with their backs against the current.

Forcing them out of the water to fight on land is the primary mission of the Northern Navy's deployment here!

Unexpectedly, his first time participating in actual combat yielded such a rich result... Quincy felt as if the god of fortune had descended directly upon him. From now on, the Northern Navy would truly stand out among the many combat forces in the kingdom and would no longer be contemptuously referred to as a "fishing force" by the army and air force.

"Wait! Lieutenant... something's not right!"

The sergeant in charge of observation turned around and said in a trembling voice, "That thing doesn't look like a floating island fortress! I've seen it before when I was training at the Ice Sea base; it was much bigger than this..."

"This thing...this thing looks like...like several conch beasts hugging each other together. It's at most one-tenth the size of the floating island. No wonder it takes hundreds of demon lizard warriors to drag it forward with black water chains!"

This is a "fake floating island" disguised as a conch-shaped creature!
(End of this chapter)