Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 461 Invasion of the Golden Feather Flower Theocracy

Louis woke up with a slight tremor, sat up in bed, walked to the porthole, raised his hand and turned off the sunshade. Outside the thickened round porthole, the night had not yet faded.

The sea was so calm that there were almost no waves, except for the occasional flying fish leaping out of the water in the distance, leaving a brief silver streak on the surface before being swallowed by the darkness again.

The ship is sailing on a route far from the mainland battlefield.

The battles of the Holy Eastern Empire no longer required his personal command.

He handed over full command of the front lines to Lambert and Gray.

The former was responsible for maintaining order and taking over, while the latter was responsible for advancing and eliminating the enemy. Each had its own duties, with no overlap and no need for repeated confirmation.

Louis stayed here because there were more important things waiting for him.

He looked away, walked to the sink, splashed cold water on his face, and his sleepiness quickly disappeared.

Louis looked up and casually waved his hand at the air.

A pale blue light screen unfolded on the retina.

[Daily intelligence update complete]

[1: The First and Second Legions of the Red Tide completed their encirclement of the Holy Eastern Empire's capital late last night.]

Louis glanced at it and said, "As expected."

This intelligence was of almost no value to him.

The entire campaign's rhythm, advance route, and key moments were originally the result of his own deductions, which were then handed over to Gray for execution.

Sending the Red Tide regular army, equipped with magic marrow rifles, steam tanks, and magic explosive bombs, to deal with a group of disorganized and poorly armed religious militias, and if something unexpected still happens, it can only mean that there is a problem with the command system itself.

He was even more concerned about the efficiency of the subsequent takeover.

"Let's hurry up and kill fewer people," Louis muttered to himself.

The text on the light screen continued to scroll.

[2: Karen's former Imperial forces severely damaged the Emerald Federation's invading army in the Battle of Sunset Canyon and launched a counter-offensive. The vanguard has now entered the Gem Corridor within Federation territory.]

Louis's gaze stopped, and he raised an eyebrow slightly.

When the Red Tide moved south, its target clearly set on the Holy Eastern Empire, the shrewd businessmen and councilors of the Emerald Federation obviously saw this as a rare window of opportunity. With just a push, they could seize that land and its resources.

Even a starved camel is bigger than a horse; they still underestimated Karen.

Louis let out a soft breath: "Greed really does make people's judgments distorted."

He did not intend to express regret for the federal government's losses.

The two sides were bleeding each other dry, which gave Red Tide enough time to deal with more troublesome matters.

The light screen flickered slightly, and the next message refreshed.

[3. The Jade Federation's Supreme Council unanimously passed a resolution last night to launch the Chimera Project, preparing to deploy artificial dragon test subjects on local battlefields.]

Louis's breathing visibly paused: "An artificial... dragon?"

The word itself carries an inappropriate weight.

The dragons disappeared from the history of the continent thousands of years ago, leaving only the remains of dragons in the gray rocks and incomplete legends.

Is the so-called man-made dragon a deformed product of alchemical stitching, or has it unearthed some ancient ruin?
Louis couldn't give an immediate answer, but a sense of crisis was clearly emerging.

Once such a strategic unit is proven to be controllable, the existing balance of power will be directly disrupted.

Whether the Red Tide's armored forces possess sufficient countermeasures remains to be verified.

"The fact that it has survived the empire's dominance for a century without being annexed must mean it has some powerful secret."

Louis took a deep breath and suppressed the question for the time being.

We must fight one battle at a time, and solve one problem at a time.

He closed the intelligence interface, and the pale blue light screen immediately disappeared.

Louis straightened the buttons on his collar, then pushed open the hatch.

Outside the door, Weil stood like a statue guarding one side of the corridor.

The sea breeze blew in through the vents, ruffling his cloak, but it couldn't shake his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Upon seeing Louis emerge, Will immediately stood at attention and performed a standard and restrained knightly salute.

“Where are we, Will?” Louis asked.

Weil turned to the side and pointed into the distance.

Looking through the open hatch, an unnatural golden halo appeared at the horizon, like a boundary forcibly inserted between the sky and the sea.

"Sir, the watchtower has been confirmed; that is indeed their shield."

He paused for a moment, then added, "The Golden Feather Flower Sect Kingdom is just ahead."

Louis walked to the railing and placed his hands on the cold metal edge.

He gazed at the outline of the continent shrouded in golden light. Though separated by the sea, he could vaguely sense an aura not belonging to the living, slowly seeping out from behind that layer of light.

…………

Three massive steel ships arrayed in a triangular formation, steadily advancing forward.

When the bow cuts through the waves, there is no extra splash; the wave crest is directly crushed and slides down to both sides along the armored hull.

The flagship Fernando was at the very front, with the second ship Indomitable and the third ship Thunder on either side, maintaining a distance accurate to the meter.

Behind them, thirty Hunter-class destroyers and supply ships deployed in sequence, forming several stable routes, with radar and sonar continuously operating, like an invisible net that firmly enveloped the entire fleet.

After spotting the mainland, the seawater began to change color not long after the voyage began.

Even Billy, a newly recruited sailor on the supply ship, noticed the problem. He leaned on the railing, looking at the colors surging beneath the waves, and for a moment couldn't tell if it was a problem with the lighting or if he was seeing things.

"Look...isn't the sea red?" His voice was a little tight, and he subconsciously lowered it, but he still lost his confidence.

At first, only the edges turned red, as if something was slowly stirring them apart.

Then the red color deepened rapidly, becoming murky and thick, with a dark sheen as the waves surged.

A fishy, ​​sweet smell began to fill the air.

On the supply ship at the rear, a new sailor named Billy's Adam's apple bobbed: "This taste... isn't right, is it?"

An old sailor with a weathered face next to him spat and pulled his hat brim down further: "What's the panic?"

The old sailor squinted as he watched the white, fluffy material gradually rise to the surface of the sea, his tone surprisingly resolute.

“Remember this, kid. If something really went wrong, we would have been ordered to turn back by now. The fact that the fleet is still moving forward means that this thing…”

The old sailor grinned, revealing a set of teeth stained yellow by smoke: "Can't stop steel."

Almost immediately after he finished speaking, two abnormal responses appeared.

A low, urgent warning sound traveled along the pipes and echoed repeatedly inside the ship.

The white floating objects are no longer scattered.

They began to slowly gather together, their outlines gradually becoming clearer.

The transparent, umbrella-shaped bodies unfold underwater, each about the size of a millstone, with a high concentration of acidic tissue encased beneath their membranes.

The tentacles, stretching over tens of meters in length, dragged through the water like soft yet deadly ropes, instinctively seeking targets to entangle.

It is a fusion of thorns and jellyfish; they move slowly, yet their density is unsettling, like a minefield closing in.

Although Billy wasn't at the rear of the battlefield, the sheer number of monsters still made his legs cramp.

…………

Inside the Fernando armored ship's bridge, Commander-in-Chief Alwin stood calmly at the command post, the area in front of him almost completely filled with monsters.

"Maintain course." His voice carried throughout the ship via the loudspeaker. "No need for evasive maneuvers."

There was a brief moment of silence on the bridge before the order was carried out in its entirety.

The spray pipes on both sides of the warship were activated simultaneously.

The metal valves made a low, resonant sound as they opened, and a large amount of alchemical fuel was atomized under high pressure, spreading out along the outer side of the ship before being ignited.

"call--"

Flames ignited instantly along the spray path, and two hundred-meter-long walls of fire rose simultaneously on the sides of the three warships.

Orange-red flames rolled along the steel shell, illuminating the surrounding sea.

The thorn jellyfish reacts the moment it comes into contact with flame.

The transparent umbrella rapidly contracted, causing the acid inside to become unstable, burst, and evaporate.

The tentacles curled and carbonized in the high temperature, breaking off before they could even wrap around each other.

The three steel behemoths maintained their original speed and passed through the flames.

The wall of fire gradually died down behind the ship, leaving only a charred channel on the sea surface. The dark red seawater churned, but no living creatures appeared again.

The fog ahead began to thin.

The view was opened again, and an outline that did not belong to nature slowly appeared on the horizon.

It was a white forest.

Hundreds and thousands of biological warships lay silently on the sea surface, their arrangement not neat, yet possessing an unsettling sense of order.

Their hulls are not made of wood, but of a pale, ossified structure covered with layers of eerie thorns, like faintly pulsating blood vessels.

The sails were not made of cloth, but rather a huge white membrane that unfolded, resembling the wings of a bat, and was held in place by several thick, dark red thorns, serving as masts to the hull.

Instead of sailors running around on the deck, there were rows of still figures.

The Golden Feather Guards' lower bodies have become one with the ship's deck, their bones growing intertwined with the deck, making it impossible to distinguish the boundary.

The upper body remained in human form, but was pale and stiff, like a sculpture that had been deliberately placed.

The roots extending from their feet penetrate directly into the mothership, drawing nourishment and commands from it.

Immediately afterward, as one of the skeleton ships slowly adjusted its course, the rest of the ships reacted almost simultaneously.

Hundreds upon hundreds of biological warships turned simultaneously, their movements so synchronized they seemed less like individual entities and more like an extension of some shared consciousness. They began to accelerate, like a school of piranhas drawn by the scent of blood, hurtling straight towards them along the shortest route.

The destroyer at the forefront of the Red Tide was the first to test-fire its secondary guns.

The cannonball sliced ​​through the air and struck the bow of a skeleton ship with pinpoint accuracy.

The explosion ripped open the ossified structure, sending fragments flying everywhere.

However, the ship did not slow down.

The fractured area began to wriggle, and dark red thorns rapidly grew from the bone sutures, pulling at the shattered structure like sutures.

Within seconds, the ship was reassembled, its shape twisted but strong enough to support continued sailing.

The bone ships returned to the ranks as if nothing had happened.

Behind the telescope, Louis watched the entire process quietly.

"The regeneration rate is good." He put down his binoculars, his expression unchanged. "Tell Alvin to resolve this as soon as possible."

…………

A Crimson Tide Knight strode across the bridge and knelt on one knee: "Commander Alwin, a message from Lord Louis."

Alwin turned his gaze away from the sea.

The knight continued, "My lord said there's no need for probing; we should resolve this as soon as possible. Time is not on our side."

Alwin nodded without asking any further questions and raised his hand from the armrest.

"Hard to port." The command was transmitted rapidly through the microphone. "Speed ​​two knots."

The steering gear emitted a deep, steady meshing sound, and the three battleships began to turn almost simultaneously.

The massive hull drew smooth arcs across the sea, the waves being sliced ​​apart by the layers of armor on its sides before quickly closing in again.

The formation was completed without any hesitation or delay.

As the fleet completed its turn, the broadsides of the three capital ships were fully extended, facing the oncoming column of the skeleton fleet.

The heavy turrets were locked in sequence, and the muzzle angles were quickly corrected.

"Load high-explosive incendiary bombs! Since they can regenerate, let's burn them to ashes!"

The loading mechanism began to operate, and the heavy projectile was sent into the breech. The locking sound rang out one after another, like a series of steel joints being tightened.

The next second, the salvo began.

Twenty-seven main cannons roared simultaneously.

The enormous recoil was transmitted along the hull, and the steel behemoth showed a visible lateral shift on the sea surface. The deck trembled slightly, and all the fixed objects emitted short metallic echoes.

"BOOM—!!! BOOM—!!!"

The air was torn apart, and the flames spewed from the cannons illuminated almost the entire sea surface.

The first high-explosive incendiary bomb landed in the center of the skeleton fleet.

The fireball expanded the instant it hit the sea surface, and the shock wave spread outwards. The waves within a 300-meter radius were directly flattened and evaporated into a rolling white mist by the high temperature.

The so-called regenerating thorns couldn't even maintain their shape when they came into contact with the core explosion zone.

The ossified hull was instantly torn apart, and the conjoined guardians and spore projectiles were engulfed in flames, with even the decomposition process being skipped.

The green fluid, just as it was sprayed out, quickly dried up in the high temperature and turned into ashes.

The second and third salvos landed in quick succession.

The entire line of attack was repeatedly covered.

As the smoke and flames dissipated slightly, huge gaps appeared in the once dense fleet of white bones.

All that remained on the sea surface were churning debris and still-burning fragments, resembling a slaughterhouse that had been forcibly plowed.

Dozens of exceptionally large, skeletal flagship-class ships still managed to break through the edge of the explosion zone.

Their hulls are covered with thick tentacles, far more numerous than those of ordinary ships, and several bony spikes wrapped in dark red veins protrude from the bow, exuding a distinctly corrosive quality.

Instead of slowing down, they accelerated in the chaos, like irrational beasts, crashing straight into the side of the No. 2 ship, the Indomitable.

The intention was very clear: board the ship, tear through the steel plates, and bring the battlefield into hand-to-hand combat.

"when--!!!"

The impact was dull and jarring.

The bow of the bone ship shattered upon contact with steel.

Bone spikes broke, bone fragments flew everywhere, and the entire ship was bounced away by the reaction force.

On the hardened steel plate of the Unyielding, only a shallow scratch was left, which did not even damage the structural layer.

The ship did not slow down; the Unyielding maintained its course, and its massive steel hull crashed directly into it.

The spinning propeller created violent eddies underwater, dragging the skeleton ship along with the deformed creatures on its deck into the hull.

Bones, tentacles, and the still-struggling body were pulverized, turning into a rapidly spreading red and white mixture.

The battleship continued forward.

Just then, the ship suddenly began to vibrate abnormally, and alarms suddenly sounded in the engine room of the Thunder.

"Speed ​​is dropping!"

The chief engineer's voice came through the intercom, sounding noticeably urgent.

"The propeller is stuck!"

The sea surface was churning.

Several huge shadows emerged from the water, creating large waves.

It was a giant sea octopus parasitized by thorns.

They are the size of small islands, with grayish-white skin covered with barbs, and tentacles that extend from the water and tightly entangle the bottom of battleships.

The strong acid secreted by the suction cups emitted white smoke on the armor surface, corroding the anti-rust coating.

A tremendous force began to drag it downwards.

Alwin's lips curled slightly: "Do they think they're clinging to a wooden boat? Trying to drag us down? They're not strong enough."

He raised his hand and ordered: "All ships, take note! Deploy depth charge bombs and detonate them!"

The moment the order was given, the destroyers on the perimeter quickly moved forward.

Rows of depth charges were released, sinking into the water and leaving a trail of short, rapid bubbles.

A few seconds later, a dull tremor came from underwater.

It wasn't the roar of an explosion, but the muffled sound of something being flattened by a layer of water.

"Boom-thump-thump-"

The sound waves propagated along the seabed, overlapping continuously, like a slow and steady drumbeat.

The giant deep-sea octopus suddenly stiffened, its exterior remaining intact, its skin undamaged.

However, the organs, nerves, and central nervous system inside the body are simultaneously compressed by the shock wave and turn into a disorganized paste.

The enormous corpse slowly rose to the surface, its suction cups opening and closing, but it could no longer exert any force.

Green fluid seeped continuously from the cracked area, quickly spreading into the dark red seawater.

The tremors on the Thunder gradually subsided, and the propellers resumed their rotation speed.

But the sea was not completely calm.

Scattered skeleton ships still float outside the burning zone; some have their hulls blown off, but are dragged forward by their remaining root systems.

Some sea monsters, not yet completely dead, writhed in the water, their tentacles twitching, trying to get back close to the fleet.

Arwen continued issuing orders: "Continue with the magic bombs."

The five simple words were transmitted throughout the ships via the megaphones.

The secondary gun compartment moved swiftly, and the alchemical projectiles specifically designed to clear abnormal targets were sent to the gun position. The runes on the surface of the shells lit up one by one during the loading process, and then went out the moment the locking was completed.

The destroyer opened fire first.

Several magic-explosive bombs skimmed across the sea with low trajectories, falling among the remaining skeleton ships.

The magic was forcibly detonated at the blast point, creating a brief but intense vacuum before the delayed impact.

The remaining skeletal remains of the ship were silently torn apart, the thorny roots seemed to be snapped from the inside, and the overall structure instantly lost its support, collapsed and shattered, and sank underwater.

Several sea monsters that were still struggling were affected.

Their shells were not burned, but they became noticeably unbalanced the next second.

The nerve signals were disrupted by magic, the tentacles stiffened, and the movements completely lost coordination.

Immediately afterwards, a second wave of magic explosive bombs rained down.

This time, the goal is closer.

The explosion occurred underwater, and the impact was amplified by the seawater.

Those creatures that were still alive were torn apart and disintegrated from the inside, without even a chance to roll over.

A few minutes later, only scattered debris remained on the sea surface.

There is no regeneration, no repair.

Everything that could still move had been cleared out.

Alvin adjusted his military cap, his gaze sweeping over the wreckage floating on the sea.

"Clean the propellers and proceed at full speed."

He paused for a moment, then added, "Report to Lord Louis that the gate has been kicked open."

(End of this chapter)