Industrial Cthulhu? It's Cthulhu Industrial!!

Chapter 45: Set sail and sow hope (ask for monthly tickets!)

The fleet is an extension of Britannia's will, and their wings cover the sky and sea, carrying the glory of the world.

This was Britannia's official claim, and it was also what they were actually doing. The Queen of Glory vainly sought to make the world never set, attempting to fix the sky in perpetual daylight. Countless fleets and soldiers advanced towards the blank world in all directions, chewing and swallowing everything in it.

Of course, it couldn't have done this on its own. Over the course of a century, Britannia began to grow uncontrollably, thriving, sprouting countless white wings called "Companies" behind it. These wings opened countless eyes and teeth, chewing on everything they could eat. Whether it was enemies, friends, their own bodies, or anything else, human greed and desire drove Britannia like a rolling stone rolling down a hillside.

Their worship of the goddess of fertility destroyed human morality and values. The Anglican Church, the uncrowned king of the Old World, once demanded that Britannia cease such atrocities. Countless armies of the White Order once set foot on the Britannian Straits, attempting to strike down the Glorious Queen's sun. But amidst the bloodshed of millions, the scorching sun turned a terrifying crimson, utterly annihilating the Old World's coalition forces in its poisonous light. Only then did people realize that humanity was essentially a quantifiable commodity, devoid of any sacredness. They were merely tradable labor and objects of blood sacrifice.

Leon showed enough respect and humility towards the current expeditionary fleet and successfully reached a basic cooperation with it. Of course, if the other party insisted on destroying it, Leon would have to take the Silver Gate and Oracle of the Sky Garden and find a place to start over.

Li Ang did not lie.

In fact, according to the true strength of the Misty Islands, for the current Britannia Punishment Fleet, it is probably just a pitiful thing that can be completely wiped out by a full-scale bombardment.

The flutter of their wings would bring about the deaths of dozens of people. Everything they did was operated according to the standard manual of Britannia. It seemed that there were only a few hundred thousand mobile sacrifices, but in fact, these sacrificial units were all labeled by the Battra Breeding Company.

As Britannia's finest feathered creatures, carrying the dreams and hopes of countless blood sacrifices, Battra Breeding Company has been dedicated to creating a wide variety of blood sacrifice units to meet their specific needs. However, they also prioritize their intellectual property rights, eliminating any factors that could interfere with their lives or cause their products to suffer unfair treatment. For example, they prioritize the sustainability of their offerings.

The Battra Breeding Company's flagship product is the Breeding Mother. These mentally twisted humans, completely alienated by the Breeding Goddess, have become the monsters that give birth to humans. However, few consider her creations truly human. After hundreds of generations of iteration and meticulous modification, these humans born from the Breeding Mother are meticulously crafted genetic beings. They have lost the ability to eat and reproduce, relying entirely on the high-energy fluids in their bodies for energy. The amount of fluid remaining in their bodies determines the vitality of these high-quality sacrifices.

These deformed individuals, without facial features or teeth, were even inferior to the soldiers squatting in boxes in the fleet. To be more precise, this thing was Britannia's standard ballast and was considered an indispensable part of the construction of the Britannia fleet.

They possess human genes, human intelligence, and even human love, hate, and vengeance. Their souls are no different from those of humans, but they were born to be used for blood sacrifice and work.

"Three thousand of the Bharat breeding goddess' offspring have approximately eight hundred days remaining. If they engage in long, intensive labor, they might only be active for a hundred days. However, they don't have any special requirements. If they encounter a particularly stressful task, they can be allowed to continue the intensive labor. There's no need to worry about their reaction, as they already believe that their death will lead to ascension to heaven."

“Is it okay to communicate directly in front of them?”

"No problem, they believe it. Even if I sacrificed and insulted them right in front of them, they didn't care. Because they believe that in the future reincarnation they will become us, and we will become those ballast stones. That's what they think."

The transaction is in progress.

In reality, the entire Britannia fleet didn't dock at a standard pier for supplies, and the large docks required by the expeditionary fleet weren't available at standard piers. Compared to the ships of the ocean-going era, today's Britannia ships appear larger, more imposing, and more environmentally conscious. For example, the standard naval docks of decades ago have been replaced by several generations.

These fleets were like living things, swallowing and spewing supplies from the light. After confirming the units and sizes of the supplies, they chose the ballast stones with the best numbers and threw them out directly, then sent them along the slide to the dock.

Soldiers wearing ceramic steel armor and extremely gorgeous patterns are recording the model and record of each ballast stone.

Although the naval captain was a little skeptical as to why they had no marked record documents and related information files, when he saw the supplies appearing in the light and the lighthouse casting such a glorious light on the coast, he felt that there was no need to ask anything and he just needed to feel the glory.

After testing, he discovered that the lighthouse's light hadn't truly and permanently eroded his brain. Simply sending a sacrifice into the ocean—roughly two hundred people—could expel the lighthouse's imprint from his mind. A sufficient number of dead people could solve any problem. This was why Britannia's civilization was so powerful today, sweeping across every recorded civilization in the world.

However, during their numerous geological surveys and investigations, they did uncover a number of disturbing records and images. Therefore, rather than simply disembarking and slaughtering their way through the land, Britannia now prefers to cooperate with local tyrants to avoid any unnecessary incidents. And someone like Leon, who considers himself human and a Britannian lord, is clearly a much easier target to deal with than the evil gods and old gods who need to be conquered. Given a choice, they naturally wouldn't want to fight monsters that could easily alter the heavens and change the world.

This transaction could be described as a classic case of a two-pronged attack, with both sides fearing the other's superior capabilities. They concluded a trade under the weight of intimidation. Each side achieved the best they could have hoped for, and both sides, content to shake hands and make peace, sealed in a magical contract that they would now be allies.

In this way, at least in the foggy sea, Britannia's fleet will have a great bonus.

For both Leon's Great Lighthouse and the Britannia Fleet itself, exchanging supplies was a quick process. Countless fruits and plant flours began to fill the Britannia Fleet's storage warehouses. Ceramic steel armor and Lianshan porcelain also began to be reinforced at the points designated by Britannia.

The entire operation took no more than twelve hours. This huge fleet, which almost covered the surface of the ocean, put away their anchors, spread their wings again, and headed towards the direction of the nameless sect.

Leon wasn't shy about sharing his information. Since the other party had already shared the news of the World Wing's fall and the impending corporate war, he would also share the existence of the Storm Wall and the possibility that the Ascension Day would end in failure. No one knew the extent of the distortion and horror within. However, the naval captain simply smiled a pale smile that even Leon felt a little terrified.

"The order we received is to move forward. We will not have any other ideas until our mission is completed. We may lose a lot on the road of exploration, but everything can be sacrificed. Sacrifice is the cornerstone of everything, and we can certainly act in this way." Standing on the deck, the naval captain saluted Leon, and the expression on his face was not much different from those of the sacrifices.

To a certain extent, the whole of Britannia has been turned into a cycle of sacrifice by this blood sacrifice system.

Whether it was a naval captain, an army lieutenant colonel, or even one of those sacrifices bred by the Bharat Company, there was essentially no difference. It was just a matter of who sacrificed earlier, who sacrificed later, and whose death was more meaningful.

After all, when they arrived as the Punishment Fleet, they had already planned to use their own deaths as a catalyst to attract the combined power of the gods and sacrifices, sending the entire Misty Islands and Leon into the void. They had come here with the awareness of death from the very beginning. And every action they took was for the sake of their family and the survival of humanity. This was their belief and conviction from childhood.

Even the Queen who obscured the starry sky was on the list of sacrifices.

"We are leaving now. Is there anything you would like us to convey, Lord Leon?"

"Say hello to my family for me, though I don't think they need it."

Looking at the slowly spreading sails, the Angel Matrix once again hummed a moving song, and the fleet gradually weighed anchor and set sail overseas, Leon raised his eyebrows.

"Britannia is indeed a very dynamic country that I've seen. But I'm still relatively young. I don't know what the other countries in the Old World and their expeditionary fleets are like. I heard that they've also occupied some continents and are conducting their own experiments and activities."

"Then we don't know, Lord Leon. Perhaps you could use the Oracle to take a look."

"Sorry, that stuff just ran out. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to enjoy such high-yield meat and grain. I wished for a breed of livestock that could quickly produce meat, and then I modified it myself so it has some local characteristics. The meat, fish, and fruit you're supplementing are all locally grown. I don't use the oracle machine as a device to obtain information, but as a seed for new life."

"Then, Lord Leon, you may have missed a lot of big news. After all, the world is changing rapidly, with countless inventions and new products emerging one after another. Perhaps in a few years, the ocean will become unobstructed. If the unknown sea god is killed one day, the time to reach the Misty Islands will be accelerated to three months, or even one month. By then, the Misty Islands will become very lively. We don't want a lord with potential to suffer losses in such a sudden attack... But, this is also your freedom."

"Of course, we can choose to face this problem in any way, in any form, and solve it from any angle and in any way. No matter how many times you return here, the lighthouse will always stand tall, and you never have to worry about losing its coordinates."

"……Thank you so much."

Standing on the deck and looking at Leon who had returned to the dock, the naval captain nodded and waved at Leon.

Countless sails were hoisted, and under the illumination of the great lighthouse, the entire fleet was like clouds and schools of fish floating on the ocean, quietly sailing towards the farther black deep sea where no land could be seen.

Only after seeing the fleet completely out of his sight did Leon breathe a sigh of relief. Honestly, seeing a large group of skull-marked units lingering near his base, even if they were tricked into being friendly forces, Leon was genuinely worried his defenses would be instantly destroyed. He had just checked the data on the cannons, and a full forty points of damage was clearly too much for the current primitive ceramic armor to withstand.

Fortunately, they didn't want to fight. Britannia had a bigger appetite, and what she wanted to eat wasn't these tiny shrimps, but the vast expanse beyond them.

"Sir, we checked and they...are not disabled."

Charlemagne, who was wearing ceramic steel armor and pretending to be an ordinary dock worker, whispered.

"The sacrifices they sent here had no soul damage. It was as if they were born that way."

"Well, I guess so. It's unlikely that the Fertility Goddess and the Barat Corporation will leave me any backdoors. They are born this way forever. It's just that a new species called 'Sacrifices' has emerged among the human population. Should I praise their creativity, or should I say they have lost their humanity?"

Watching the three thousand ballast stones gradually stretching their bodies and raising their faceless heads as sacrifices waiting for orders, Leon looked at his three islands and fell into deep thought.

He is not a god, and the current island can only provide hope for tens of thousands of people.

But, if you can, you might as well give it a try.

Looking at the values ​​of the Misty Islands, Leon thought.

(End of this chapter)