I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 526 Seizing the Port
Perhaps it was because the mage who presided over the strategic magic died, or perhaps the magic reserves of the other four magic towers were depleted.

The whirlpool that trapped the Storm didn't last long; it began to slow down after only three or four minutes and then disappeared completely within three minutes.

The vortex disappeared, and the players who had been firing continuously while the ship was shaking and spinning suddenly fired even harder and faster. If all the cannons on the Storm hadn't been forged from modern steel, making them more durable than ordinary cannons, this wave of rapid-fire would have already turned the cannon barrels red-hot.

Even so, many fast-moving gun crews still managed to make their cannons smoke, and had to pour seawater on them to forcefully cool the barrels.

Doing this will shorten the lifespan of the cannon, but the player doesn't care. It's not their own cannon, so they don't care. The most important thing now is to fire the shells. They don't care if the barrel explodes; at worst, they'll just die.

But if you're too slow and end up firing one less shell or getting fewer kills, that's the worst thing that can happen.

Freed from the constraints of the Great Vortex and the continuous suppression of the Magic Tower, the Storm, like a ferocious beast breaking free of its chains, covered in smoke and wounds, viciously pounced on Moonstone Harbor.

Players maneuvered cannons, unleashing their remaining shells on the port's fortifications, scattered warships, and any buildings that resembled barracks or warehouses.

The explosions continued, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the air, leaving the once bustling port in ruins.

The four magic towers were powerless to resist. The shields covering the towers had been shattered, and the tower bodies were riddled with holes, all bearing the marks of twenty-pound cannonballs.

Faced with the storm's bombardment, the magic tower did not retaliate; the crystal luster at its spire vanished, as if everyone inside had fled.

The roar of cannons became the only symphony in Moonstone Harbor at that moment.

Just as the Storm had plowed through the port area with its heavy artillery, completely suppressing any resistance that dared to show its face, three armed merchant ships that had been poised to attack, like sharks that had smelled blood, took advantage of the deathly shadow cast by the Storm and launched a landing assault on the dock area on the flank of the port.

Weighing only a few hundred tons, they lacked the terrifying heavy firepower of the Storm and their hulls appeared much thinner. But at this moment, they carried the first wave of landing players, their bows cleaving through the murky waves as they plunged straight onto the beach.

These players were the second batch of investors. Although they did not contribute any prestige or military merit, they still spent a considerable amount of silver. It was time for them to make their appearance during the beach landing.

"Faster, faster! The guys on the Storm are creating an opportunity for us!"

"Brothers, fire! Suppress the enemy on the docks!"

Approaching the enemy's dock, ignoring the various ships still remaining in the harbor, the light cannons and muskets mounted on the decks of the three armed merchant ships, along with the Hundred Tigers Charging Rockets, began to roar.

Although these firearms were far less powerful than the Storm's cannons, they had the advantage of sheer numbers. They could unleash a dense barrage of bullets, making the wooden structures on the dock crackle and pop like raindrops. This caused the port defenders, who were trying to gather, to be unable to raise their heads.

With the cover of fire from the deck of the armed merchant ship, the players' landing was not greatly hindered, but that did not mean it would be smooth sailing.

Because amphibious landing is inherently a very complex and dangerous undertaking.

First of all, the Moonstone Port dock was not designed for military landings. The wooden piers had not survived the previous bombardment by the Stormship and were damaged in many places, so they could not withstand the swarm of players rushing in.

As the first armed merchant ship docked at the pier, dozens of fully armed players excitedly jumped off the ship. The already creaking wooden structure groaned under the strain, and then with a crisp sound, the outer part broke and collapsed.

"Fuck me!"

"The bridge is broken!"

"Get in the water! Those who can swim, come with me across!"

The players who jumped off the ship all fell into the murky seawater amidst screams.

At this moment, a dozen or so heavy infantrymen, dressed in thick armor and eager to fight the elves for three hundred rounds, met with terrible misfortune. As soon as they fell into the water, they sank to the bottom.

A few people reacted quickly, untying the ropes and belts off their armor in the water and surfacing thanks to their tenacious will to live, while the others continued to swim downstream.

Even though some players who could swim tried to rescue them after they fell into the water, only two lucky ones were dragged ashore. More than ten heavy infantry players became the first batch of "trash" in this landing operation, and withdrew from the battle in an extremely frustrating way.

The scene was chaotic for a moment, but this setback could not stop the tide of players.

"Forget about the pier! Climb up through that breach!"

"Brothers who can swim, those wearing leather armor, come with me, let's swim across the water!"

In the chaos, the players displayed an amazing ability to adapt and a chaotic way of cooperating. Players who were confident in their swimming abilities jumped into the sea like dumplings being dropped into boiling water, while those who were less confident relied on small boats lowered from the ship to continue landing and then used ropes to pull the armed merchant ship toward the port.

The real breakthrough came from the second and third armed merchant ships.

Learning from the mistakes of their predecessors, they did not attempt to force their way onto the rickety main pier. Instead, taking advantage of their smaller size, they either crashed directly into the relatively sturdy stone bases on the sides of the pier or simply ran aground in the shallower mudflats.

The screeching sound of the ship colliding with the rocks sounded like a battle cry to the player.

Just as the landing speed was forced to slow down, the garrison in the dock area seized the opportunity.

Although suppressed by the firepower of the Storm and armed merchant ships, making it difficult for the remaining defenders to regroup, they demonstrated the advantages of fighting on local ground.

Instead of forming ranks in open ground, they broke into smaller groups and, relying on the mountains of cargo boxes piled up on the dock, the broken ship skeletons, and the windows and roofs of the stone warehouses, launched precise and vicious sniper attacks.

"Whoosh!"

An arrow shot out from a gap in a cargo crate, striking a player struggling through the seawater in the throat. The player clutched his bleeding neck, looked up in the direction of the arrow, and then, gasping for breath, pointed to the enemy's hiding place, guiding the players behind him.

"puff!"

A player who had just climbed onto the dock and was trying to shake off the water droplets was pierced through the chest by a short spear thrown from the roof, and simply fell backward and became motionless.

Furthermore, sporadic flashes of magical light appeared among the logged-in players, and fireballs, freezing rays, or translucent wind blades shot out from various places, causing effective damage and great obstruction.

"There are archers on the second floor of the warehouse at the three o'clock position!"

"Damn it, there's something in the water too, it looks like tentacles..."

"Ah, a magician!!!"

The players quickly encountered obstacles in the landing battle. Despite their powerful firepower and high morale, they were dragged into an extremely passive situation at the most vulnerable moment of landing.

The enemy's attacks came from all directions, making it difficult to pinpoint their exact location, while they themselves were crammed into the narrow landing point and the crowded seawater, becoming easy targets.

To make matters worse, some of the defenders were clearly experienced.

They used a small number of archers to draw the players' fire, and while the players angrily unleashed arrows and bullets in the suspected direction, the agile half-elf swordsmen had already approached from the flanks and launched a deadly surprise attack.

For a time, an extremely fierce and chaotic boarding action unfolded in the dock area.

On one side is a player-led landing force that is fearless but disorganized and has not yet established a firm foothold; on the other side is a remnant of the defending army whose individual soldiers may be of higher quality, who are familiar with the terrain, and who employ ruthless tactics.

The players are slowly advancing thanks to their numerical advantage, but every step forward comes at a much higher cost than expected. The constant gunfire and roars echoing across the sea and along the docks indicate that the landing operation will be far from smooth sailing.

When one player saw his teammates falling one after another while his team's counterattacks had little effect, he became enraged, pulled out a flare pistol from his pocket, and fired it at an angle into the sky.

With a bang, a red signal flare rose slowly, flashing a blinding and dangerous light in the combat zone.

A dozen seconds later, the Storm's massive hull was slightly adjusted so that the rear gun ports were aimed at the dock area.

"I see the signal... Brothers, load the explosive rounds!"

The henchmen shouted.

"The artillery coordinates are as follows..."

Two minutes later, the thunder roared once again.

With a deafening roar, a dozen massive exploding shells, trailing the shrieks of death, ripped through the sky and slammed into the chaotic battleground between the players and the half-elf counter-attack forces. The enormous explosions instantly engulfed everything.

The brick and stone warehouse collapsed like building blocks in the flames, and the heavy wooden planks that laid the dock were torn into countless pieces, mixed with hot metal shrapnel, which flew in all directions.

Those swift half-elf swordsmen and shieldmen, their agility and swordsmanship seemed so pale and powerless in the face of absolute destructive power. The shockwave sent them flying like rag dolls, and their shields were twisted into scrap metal when hit directly by the cannonballs.

The elven archers and elven mages who hid in high places and corners also could not escape their fate.

The smoke and flames from the explosion shot into the sky, briefly obscuring the heavens.

As the lingering smoke and dust dissipated slightly under the sea breeze, the entire pier area had been completely transformed.

The area where players and the defenders had previously engaged in a brutal tug-of-war is now nothing but a desolate wasteland radiating outwards.

The cargo piles, low walls, and even half of the stone warehouse that the port guards had relied on had all disappeared, leaving only charred ruins and scorching debris on the ground.

Those swift half-elf swordsmen and shieldmen who had caused the players so much trouble were reduced to scattered debris along with their shields and armor in the explosion. The arrows and sporadic spells fired from above also ceased abruptly; either the archers were killed by the shockwave, or their cover was blown away.

The Storm's heavy artillery cleared away the most stubborn obstacles in the path of the landing forces in the most brutal way.

Just one volley.

The elite elven and half-elven counterattack forces, which had caused great trouble for the players and even turned the tide of the battle, along with the buildings they relied on for cover, were almost completely wiped off the map.

Only a few figures with low health remained, staggering through the burning ruins before being riddled with bullets by players who had reacted quickly.

The dock area fell into a deathly silence, with only the crackling of burning wood and the heavy breathing of the players remaining.

This round of shelling not only caused casualties to the enemy, but also to at least fifty players who landed at the dock. After all, the shockwaves and shrapnel from the explosions don't discriminate.

But nobody cares about that.

"Storm is awesome!!!"

"What are you waiting for? Charge!"

The wave of players who logged in surged forth without any further hindrance, roaring into the streets of Moonstone Harbor.

The Storm, in the most savage and direct way, declared that any attempt to stop the "Fourth Calamity" would be crushed in the face of the torrent of steel and fire.

Moonstone Harbor fell at this moment.

……

Timber merchant Cole was unlucky. He was in the dock area, and when the shells fell, he was behind a pile of timber about 20 meters away, firing his longbow. The shockwave from the explosion caused his bunker to collapse and crush him.

The heavy logs pressed down on Cole. Poor Cole, who was nearly four hundred years old and had never exercised except for shooting arrows occasionally, he fainted on the spot from being exhausted from shooting arrows.

When Cole woke up, he found himself facing a sky of azure blue with black smoke rising from it. After blinking a few times, he realized he was lying on the ground.

Cole tried to get up from the ground, but as soon as he moved, he felt excruciating pain all over his body, especially in his left leg and chest, as if he had been crushed by a boulder.

Most importantly, there was a feeling of restraint on his hands, which were placed in front of his chest. When Cole looked down, he saw a pair of handcuffs that gleamed with the luster of steel. He also felt the same restraint on his feet.

The cold touch and excruciating pain jolted Cole fully awake, making him realize his condition.

The timber merchant heard something, and he struggled to twist his neck and look around.

As far as the eye could see, there was only ruin and smoke. The dock area he was familiar with was completely unrecognizable. The once piled-up high-quality timber had turned into charred debris and still smoking remains.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder, the acrid smell of burning wood, and... a heavy stench of blood and death that Cole had never smelled before, yet which made him instinctively nauseous.

Cole found himself and several dozen other surviving port guards, along with some civilians and sailors who had been captured just as badly as him, gathered in a relatively open area filled with rubble and debris.

Everyone's hands and feet were locked with rough iron shackles or bound behind their backs with tough ropes.

Cole observed carefully and found that the people gathered together were all half-elves or elves, while the humans... He turned his head to look in the other direction.

The human residents and laborers who settled around Moonstone Harbor were numbly clearing away ruins, moving corpses, and repairing damaged dock facilities under the shouts of the guards who were dressed in all sorts of clothes but uniformly carrying dwarven muskets.

Most of them wore expressions of fear and confusion, but at least... they were still alive and able to move.

The group of elf and half-elf captives, including Cole, were kept under even stricter guard, as evidenced by the shackles on their hands and feet.

Not good.

Cole realized he had survived, but this differential treatment was not good.

He cast his gaze into the distance and saw the conquerors searching through the ruins, tossing the relatively intact weapons and armor left behind by the defenders onto the nearby wagons. Occasionally, they would have brief, but not truly angry, arguments over the ownership of a piece of spoils.

They seemed to have a particular fondness for weapons and equipment, while showing some disdain for money and glittering jewelry.

The Magic Tower, how is the Magic Tower doing?

Cole was thinking that he wanted to observe the magic towers, but when he struggled to turn his head, he found that his view was blocked by the other elven prisoners of war, and he could not see the current situation of the other magic towers.

From the dejected expressions of the other elves, and from the sight of a figure in a familiar elven mage uniform in the crowd, Cole knew that the magic tower and the mage inside were likely in grave danger.

The timber merchants could only look towards the sea on the other side.

Then Cole saw the massive warship that had destroyed Moonstone Harbor in every sense of the word.

Observing it up close now allowed him to see more clearly the tragic state of the sea monster.

The warship's hull was covered with dents and scratches of all sizes, and there was even obvious damage near the waterline, which was temporarily plugged with wooden boards and some gray, clay-like substance.

Many of the cannon barrels above the deck still have dark red embers from firing and water stains and salt frost left by the cooling seawater. Some cannons even have obvious cracks or twists on their muzzles.

The ship clearly also paid a heavy price.

However, the enemies darting back and forth in their small boats around it, and the busy figures on the deck, showed no sign of regret.

They shouted as they hoisted crates of supplies from the port warehouses onto the ship using crude ropes and pulleys. Among them appeared to be several bundles of yew wood stored in his Cole lumber warehouse, intended for making high-grade bows.

Cole's long, pointed ears gave him excellent hearing, allowing him to hear the conversations of these enemies... but unfortunately, he couldn't understand them.

However, from the tone of their conversations, Cole could tell that they were happy and there was no negative emotion involved.

Were they pirates?
Cole was puzzled, because in his impression and memory, only pirates would place such excessive importance on profits while ignoring casualties.

No, pirates couldn't possibly possess such a warship.

Cole dismissed his guess, and then he fell into a state of confusion.

So, who are they, what do they want to do in the Blue Flame Islands, and why did they attack Moonstone Harbor?
Is there anything they want here?
Cole was utterly puzzled.

The cost of the enemy casualties and the heavy damage to that warship far exceeded all the gains they could obtain from Moonstone Harbor.

So, what's going on here?

(End of this chapter)