I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 560 Regular Army Landing
On the spacious aft deck of the 2,500-ton flagship HMS Sea Lion, Vice Admiral Marlowe stood ramrod straight, just as he had when he served in the Army, his brass binoculars steadily tracking the impact point of each shell.

He was not yet forty years old, with a resolute face and sharp eyes. His experience of being transferred from a major general in the Imperial Defense Force to a vice admiral in the Navy gave him a profound understanding of land-sea coordination.

"Solid shot is effective against dense formations, but its destructive effect on loose targets and large demons is not satisfactory."

He put down his binoculars and spoke calmly to the first mate beside him, his voice carrying the composure characteristic of a soldier.

"Moreover, the King's Guards on the beach are in terrible condition."

In the telescope's view, the king's guards, numbering less than a thousand, clung desperately to the wreckage of the last dozen or so stranded merchant ships, like rocks battered by waves, resisting the black tide of demons.

Their bravery was moving, but the situation was clearly precarious.

"We cannot let them perish here."

Lieutenant General Marlowe said in a deep voice, having made his decision.

"Order all ships to switch to explosive shells and open fire. Target the Devil's Assault Formation on the beachhead and conduct covering fire. Each ship shall determine the firing data independently, with priority given to ensuring the safety of the close-in defense line."

The command was quickly translated into colored signal flags by the flag signaler and raised to the mainmast of the Sea Lion.

The massive fleet began to adjust like a sophisticated machine, and the flashes of fire from the gun ports foreshadowed an even more violent storm to come.

However, in the brief interval between the shelling preparations, the sentry on the mainmast lookout tower of the Sea Lion suddenly waved a signal flag, urgently relaying a message downwards.

"General, the King's Guard on the shore is communicating using our National Guard's standard flag signals. They have given their coordinates and requested ten rounds of rapid fire!"

A hint of surprise flashed in Lieutenant General Marlowe's eyes, which quickly turned into decisiveness.

"very good!"

He gave a thumbs-up and immediately gave the order.

"Attention all fleet members, fire ten rapid rounds of explosive shells according to the coordinates provided on shore, execute immediately!"

"boom……"

Ten minutes later, the kingdom's fleet launched a second salvo, and this time it was completely different from the previous one.

Thousands of exploding shells, accompanied by the shriek of death, precisely struck the areas on the shore marked by flag signals as having the highest concentration of demons and the positions from which the attack was launched.

"Rumble, rumble..."

The continuous explosions instantly engulfed the beach.

Precast shrapnel swept through like a storm of steel, tearing the demon apart piece by piece and sending it flying.

Green fel blood and black limbs splattered everywhere. The demon's ferocious offensive was instantly shattered and scattered by this devastatingly precise strike, like waves crashing against a reef.

The violent explosions had not yet subsided, and billowing smoke and dust mixed with the stench of demonic flesh and blood enveloped the entire beachhead. The relatively orderly impact zone expected from the impact of the solid shells did not appear. Instead, a death zone, thoroughly plowed by the steel storm, was filled with craters and scorched earth.

The destructive power of the exploding shells far exceeded expectations.

The demons' vanguard did indeed crumble in an instant, with severed limbs and blood staining the beach an eerie dark green. However, the deadly pre-fabricated fragments and violent shockwaves were not merely content to devour the enemy.

In front of the shipwreck defense line held by the King's Guard, a starting position that players considered a safe zone for charging out had now become a completely different scene.

Dozens of players, whose bodies had already shown varying degrees of demonic characteristics, were crouching low, preparing to launch a desperate counterattack during the chaos and brief pause caused by the bombardment of physical cannonballs.

These players, resurrected using the flesh and blood of berserkers, have tough skin covered in keratinous scales, horns piercing their helmets, and bulging muscles, granting them superhuman strength and resistance to low-intensity damage.

Based on their estimation of the trajectory and damage range of the physical shells, this distance was safe enough, even allowing them to charge close to the point of impact and catch the demons off guard.

But what came hurtling in was not a heavy, solid bullet, but a flower of death blooming in mid-air.

Without warning, steel fragments shot out in all directions like a torrential rain, traveling at supersonic speeds.

Several demonized players who were closest to the epicenter were the first to be hit. Their tough scales and muscles were easily torn apart and pierced like paper in the face of the high-speed explosion. Some were even blown away by the shockwave at close range, their limbs twisted as they crashed onto the scorched earth.

Those a little further away were not spared either; shrapnel mercilessly pierced their flanks and backs, drawing out bursts of hot blood of various colors... some still retained the bright red of humans, while others were mixed with the eerie green of demons.

The painful groans and roars sounded particularly jarring in the aftershocks of the explosion.

"What's going on? Didn't the Shanghai Pirate King say that the bullets fired by his own people were solid shot, and that even if there were friendly fire incidents, not many people would die!?"

A player whose cheek was covered in bone armor, but was now ripped open by shrapnel, roared, his eyes filled with shock and anger.

"It's a high-explosive shell; the area killed by the explosion is too large!"

The player with the other arm mutated into claws clutched his abdomen, which was oozing purple blood, knelt on one knee, and gritted his teeth.

Their carefully planned counter-attack formation was shattered by friendly fire.

Although the core player defenses were preserved due to distance and the cover of the shipwreck, the demonized players, who served as the spearhead force, suffered unexpected and heavy casualties.

The sharp blade, originally intended for counterattack, has already damaged itself before it has even been drawn.

On the beach, the demons' roars and howls continued, but interspersed among them were the players' painful groans and angry questions caused by accidental injuries.

Although there were some shortcomings, after the First Fleet's ten rounds of artillery fire, the originally surging wave of demons clearly lost momentum. The remaining demons, having lost their command and suffered heavy damage, began to retreat towards Crystal Song Forest like a receding tide.

On the beach, the surviving players cheered with relief, even though their numbers had dwindled to less than one-tenth.

Lieutenant General Marlowe surveyed the battlefield, confirming that the demons' attack had been temporarily thwarted. He nodded and issued new orders.

"Order: Cruisers HMS Gale and HMS Seawolf, and destroyer Hound Squadron, remain in this area to provide fire support. All Marines are to be transferred to small boats to land, assist the King's Guard in consolidating the beachhead, and rescue the wounded."

"The remaining battleships, cruisers, and auxiliary vessels, follow the flagship Sea Lion, turn, target... Elven Mooncrown City port, the entire fleet maintains battle formation, prepare to bombard the demon stronghold in the city!"

With the order issued, the massive First Fleet of the Kingdom of Bagnia was split in two.

A number of smaller ships remained to guard the scarred beachhead, while the main force, to the sound of the captain's horn, adjusted its sails, cut through the waves, and sailed with overwhelming force toward the elven city still shrouded in war and fel energy.

The real counterattack has only just begun.

……

Just as the beachhead roared with gunfire and smoke filled the air, several kilometers off the coast, the First Fleet's massive transport fleet was slowly rising and falling with the waves.

Lin Ruoyu, the leader of the Ultra Warriors Legion, stood like a blue-gray statue on the side of his transport ship, the Resolute.

His signature blue cloak fluttered slightly in the salty sea breeze, and his gaze behind his helmet pierced through the dissipating morning mist, calmly surveying the beach being baptized by death and fire, and the destructive barrage unleashed by the fleet.

Even across the sea, the distinctive, continuous explosions of the exploding shells were clearly audible.

He noticed the unusual range of artillery fire and the accompanying sense of incongruity and chaos, but he made no comment on it; in the fog of war, misjudgment and accidents are the norm.

His mission was to lead his soldiers to that land and turn the tide of the war.

"Commander, Lieutenant General Marlowe has ordered us to land. The landing craft are ready!"

The messenger rushed over and reported loudly.

Lin Ruoyu withdrew his gaze and turned to face the deck.

Behind him stood a hundred Extreme Warrior players, all clad in heavy armor, their armor gleaming with a cold, metallic sheen in the sparse sunlight filtering through the clouds and reflecting off the sea.

They stood in silent formation, inspecting their flintlock muskets, longswords, and spears, as well as the Tiger Descending the Mountain rockets carried by some of the players. The grim atmosphere contrasted sharply with the busy and noisy atmosphere of the surrounding sailors.

"Get on board."

Lin Ruoyu's command was concise and powerful.

The process began immediately, and the Ultramarines, acting as the Marine Corps of the First Fleet, immediately encountered the unavoidable troubles of amphibious landings in this era.

First, there is a significant height difference and constant relative motion between the transport ship and the small barges used for landing.

Players clad in heavy fish-scale armor must take every step with exceptional steadiness. When heading towards the landing craft, they must carefully observe the gaps in the waves and precisely step onto the slippery, narrow gangplank between the ship's side and the violently rocking landing craft before jumping.

If one is not careful and falls into the sea, even with the player's strength and full of heavy armor, they will become a lump of iron and quickly sink to the bottom of the sea.

There weren't many Ultra Warrior players preparing to land in this landing, only about a thousand. However, the landing craft of the sailing warship era had limited capacity and could not transport a large number of heavily armed troops at once.

Even with only a thousand people, the Ultra Warrior players had to board the ship in batches, which led to waiting and crowding on the transport ship's deck.

Each landing craft was like a can crammed full of steel giants, forcing heavily armored players to squeeze into the cramped space in extremely restricted positions, making even turning around difficult. Therefore, when Lieutenant General Marlowe led the main fleet away from the beach, fewer than one hundred Ultramarines players had successfully boarded the landing craft near the ten transport ships.

Players belonging to other factions, however, were able to board the landing craft faster and more easily because they were lightly equipped. A dozen or so small boats, fully loaded, had already set off for the beach.

When Lin Ruoyu stepped onto the bow of the reinforced landing craft he was on, his heavy body caused the craft to suddenly sink, splashing water everywhere.

He ignored the unstable rocking of the ship beneath his feet and turned his gaze back to the beach shrouded in gunfire and demons.

"How many people have come up?"

"I'm not sure, maybe around twenty."

One of the players on the landing craft gave a casual answer.

Lin Ruoyu turned his head and looked around, but he couldn't see anything, so he could only wave his hand.

"Send a signal flare and get the landing craft full of people to set off immediately. Don't wait any longer. Let's get ashore first and meet up with the others at the stall!"

"Okay... Captain, let's go! Flag bearer, signal the others!"

The oars of the landing craft began to enter the water in unison, propelling the somewhat overweight landing craft slowly and steadily toward the perilous beachhead.

When the landing craft crashed heavily onto the beach and ran aground in the shallow water mixed with the remains of demons and scorched sand, it was around three o'clock in the afternoon. The sky was too dim and yellow, as if blood had been smeared on it, which made people feel uneasy.

Lin Ruoyu was the first to step off the ship's side. His heavy metal combat boots had just hit the seawater when the icy water, carrying the pungent smell of gunpowder and blood, rushed towards him.

The twenty-odd Ultra Warrior players behind him followed closely, wading ashore with difficulty but in an orderly fashion. Their blue armor was faintly visible in the billowing smoke, like steel giants emerging from the mist.

The scene on the beach was even more tragic than it appeared from a distance.

The corpses of demons piled up like mountains, and broken weapons and player remains were scattered across the scorched earth.

The surviving players are taking a quick breather, bandaging their wounds, and rebuilding their scattered defenses.

In the distance, towards Crystal Song Forest, low growls and fel energy fluctuations began to gather again, suggesting that the demons' retreat was only temporary.

"Quickly form a defensive formation! We need to set up our formation in a relatively open area, facing the woodland!"

Lin Ruoyu only glanced through the binoculars a few times. Having once worked in the Protectorate and dealt with demons, he immediately realized what the demons wanted to do, so he quickly gave the order.

The extreme warriors following behind Lin Ruoyu immediately sprang into action.

Using Lin Ruoyu as their spearhead, they quickly ran forward, forming an arc-shaped defensive line on a suitable small open space.

The heavy flintlock muskets, with their calibers deliberately increased, were held level, their muzzles aimed at the direction from which the demons might surge again. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, displaying an extremely high level of training, a stark contrast to the somewhat scattered state of the other players who had also landed on the beach.

Almost the instant Lin Ruoyu and his men were ready to fight, a chilling shriek came from the sky.

Dozens of winged demons, like black vultures, swooped down from the smoke-filled sky, their target the Ultra Warriors who had just landed and whose formation was not yet fully stable!

"Aerial threat, prepare phosphorus fireworks!"

Lin Ruoyu heard the unusual noise above him, but he only looked up once before calmly giving the order.

Upon receiving the order, several Ultramarines positioned at the rear of the formation swiftly retrieved steel cylinders, about the thickness of an arm and sealed at the top, from special launch tubes on their backs. They skillfully pulled the fuses at the bottom of the cylinders, producing the sound of gunpowder igniting.

"Whoosh...whoosh!"

Streaks of fire, trailing white smoke, shot into the sky, tracing chaotic paths in the air before exploding violently in or near the winged demon horde.

There was no deafening roar, only patches of pale, pungent phosphorescent light raining down.

This phosphorescent fire is extremely vicious. Once it touches the thin but tough fleshy wings of the Winged Demon, it immediately emits a "sizzling" burning sound and quickly burns through charred holes.

The winged demons that were hit let out a shrill wail, lost their balance, and fell from the sky in a whirl like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily onto the beach or the sea, splashing up murky water.

A salvo of phosphorescent fireworks failed to effectively halt the first wave of winged demons' dive, but it did frighten them, causing them to hesitate and buying precious time for the ground formation to stabilize.

By the time they reached the ground, the armed merchant ships and other landing players near the Ultramarines had already raised their flintlock muskets and were firing incessantly into the sky.

Phosphorus fireworks are something players manually craft on the transport ship; they are one of the anti-aircraft weapons they hastily created after learning that the demons have an air superiority in this battle.

Judging from current practical experience, it is still somewhat useful... although it's not very accurate.

Meanwhile, the cruiser Hayate and several destroyers that remained in the area also unleashed their fire once again.

Solid and explosive bullets whistled over the landing forces and slammed into the regrouping, restless demon hordes at the edge of Crystal Song Forest.

The shells landed, and the explosions and shockwaves kicked up a cloud of sand and blood, nipping many of the demonic attacks that were just beginning to emerge in the bud.

However, artillery fire could not cover all areas.

From the gaps in the shelling and in the blind spots, more demons... howling horned demons, numerous inferior demons, and some enormous berserker demons clad in heavy bone armor, surged toward the beachhead like a flood bursting its banks.

The ground trembled slightly as they surged forward.

The Extreme Warriors Squad, consisting of more than twenty members, led by Lin Ruoyu, stood at the forefront.

"Hold on!"

Lin Ruoyu roared and drew the decapitation sword hanging at his waist, its blade gleaming coldly in the dim light.

"First rank, fire freely!"

Once the order was given, the players, each wielding a flintlock pistol with a full 25mm caliber, aimed at their targets. Once the guns fired, white smoke billowed from the front of their small crescent-shaped formation, and the massive lead bullets accurately struck the front ranks of the demon assault formation.

The horned demon at the forefront, as if struck by an invisible hammer, burst into a burst of dark red blood and fell backward without a sound.

However, there were simply too many demons, and the fall of the first ten or so demons could not stop the subsequent charge.

Seeing this, Lin Ruoyu issued a second order.

"Grenades ready... throw!"

The second rank of soldiers quickly stepped forward, bypassing the first rank that was loading. They pulled out wooden-handled grenades from their satchels, bit off the fuses with their teeth, and threw them with all their might into the horde of demons that had come within tens of meters.

Explosions rang out one after another among the demons, and shrapnel and shockwaves blasted gaps in the dense formation.

Then, the torrent of demons inevitably collided with the Ultramarines' lines.

"Kill them!!!"

Lin Ruoyu let out a battle roar, swung his two decapitation swords, and cleaved a unicorn that was trying to pounce on the flank of the formation in two.

The warriors behind him also raised their rifles or brandished flintlock muskets with bayonets, engaging in a brutal hand-to-hand battle with the charging demons.

The demon's claws and bone blades clashed against the player's steel armor and weapons, producing a piercing scraping and impact sound.

The scale armor provides excellent protection for Ultramarines. Occasionally, when demonic magical attacks, such as corrosive fel breath or chaotic energy arrows, are launched, the Divine Protection Amulet hanging on the player's chest or arm armor will glow faintly, forming a thin but tough barrier that deflects or neutralizes most of the evil energy.

The Divine Power Amulet appeared on the military merit exchange form in the military camp half a year ago, but it was redeemed by veteran players as soon as it appeared, so much so that no solo players in the second phase of the Revenge Fleet had one.

Now, the Ultra Warriors are enjoying the protection of the Divine Power Amulet... This is the result of research on the Divine Power Crystal left behind after the players killed the Earth Mother Goddess Priest a long time ago.

The Ultramarines formed small battle groups of three, back to back, providing cover for each other and efficiently reaping the demons that charged at them.

Their strength far surpasses that of ordinary people; every slash and thrust contains enormous kinetic energy, often easily severing the limbs of demons or piercing their tough outer skin with bayonets.

The battle instantly entered its bloodiest and most brutal stage of annihilation.

The blue figure stood firm amidst the black, demonic tide, like a reef, unmoved by the crashing waves.

The sounds of flintlock muskets firing, grenades exploding, weapons clashing, demonic roars mingling with the furious shouts of warriors, composing a bloody symphony of beach defense.

Instead of holding his ground, Lin Ruoyu roared and charged into the surging tide of demons like a bolt of blue lightning.

Having not experienced a major battle in a long time, he was itching to get his hands dirty.

Lin Ruoyu's charging figure was instantly swallowed up by the demon's black torrent, but like a reef going against the current, wherever he passed, the black waves were forcibly cleaved and shattered.

(End of this chapter)