Mis Kingdom's western coast, approximately twenty-five kilometers offshore.
When the Admiral raised his monocular to scan the distance, his brow furrowed involuntarily.
“Are they really coming?”
A pigeon beast knight sent out earlier had reported an astonishing number of aerial monsters approaching.
Seconds after the message was sent, the knight went silent. Presumably, he was dead.
The entire fleet immediately tensed up.
The soldiers on the ships prepared for battle, and the flying knights stationed on the primary vessels readied themselves to intercept.
And then...
Countless black dots appeared, dense and suffocating.
“Hiss—what on earth are those?”
Seeing the swarm of insects rapidly approaching from the sky several kilometers away, the Admiral felt a wave of numbness wash over him.
Most terrifyingly, the number of black dots continued to grow. On the horizon, ships resembling black specks were continuously launching scourges and mutalisks.
Less than a minute later, the massive swarm was upon them.
“Take off! All units, engage the enemy! Mages, focus on anti-air!”
Amidst the roars, nearly four hundred pigeon beast knights beat their wings and took to the sky.
In truth, seeing that many flyers in the air was a formidable and intimidating sight, but it paled in comparison to the enemy's overwhelming numbers.
As they drew closer, the extreme speed and horrific appearance of the scourges sent a shock through the crew members.
Volleys of magical fire arrows were launched into the sky.
Xia Jin, sharing the aerial vision, watched the rising arrows and noted that the Mis Kingdom's combat coordination was remarkably disciplined.
The mages' skills were surprisingly synchronized. The fire arrows even possessed a degree of homing capability; unless the scourges performed high-intensity evasive maneuvers beyond their usual capacity, they were difficult to dodge.
In an instant, over thirty scourges were struck, erupting in high-temperature explosions.
But it was meaningless. When swarms of scourges began diving from all directions, the enemy truly understood the horror of numerical superiority.
Mutalisks flew high above, spitting glaive wurms at the pigeon beast knights.
The battle was joined in an instant.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amidst the chain of explosions, pigeon beast knights fell like rain.
And below them lay the vast, unforgiving sea.
Boom! Boom!
The first ship erupted in raging flames after a series of impacts. The deck was torn apart by the terrifying force, and severed limbs fell like rain.
“Cannons! Aim for the sky!”
The Admiral personally watched a scourge approach and struck it down with a flash of his blade.
However, he clearly felt the terror of these insects. These creatures, which killed by self-detonating, possessed physical strength close to Tier 4.
Several soldiers frantically aimed a cannon at the sky.
Because the cannons were primarily designed for ship-to-ship combat, they had to be manually hoisted by the men.
The ton-heavy structure, with a caliber of over 100mm, was fired with a sudden pull of the cord.
Bang!
A miss.
However, a shot from another ship managed a direct hit.
“This fighting style is even more absurd than 88mm flak,” Xia Jin thought, watching the scene.
Her insects were not stupid. Many scourges dove toward the sea's surface, skimming across the water to slam directly into the sides of the hulls.
The hulls shattered under the continuous bombardment, and massive breaches were torn open.
The scourges then flew directly into these openings, detonating their energy inside and tearing through the lower waterproof steel plates.
Terrifying amounts of water began to pour in.
“Damn it!”
In the first encounter, more than half of the pigeon beast knights, who averaged Tier 5 in strength, were killed.
The mutalisks began attacking the ships from a distance.
No matter how strong the soldiers on the ships were, they were helpless against enemies flying in from every possible angle.
The cannons on the ships were rendered useless before they could even have an effect.
What followed was the systematic destruction of the fleet.
Sixteen vessels under 1,000 tons, ten 1,000-ton class ships, three 2,000-ton class ships, and one 4,000-ton class ship were consumed by fire one after another, slowly sinking into the depths.
Of course, because their individual power was limited, the Zerg had deployed a total of 12,000 scourges and 200 mutalisks.
It was through such sheer numbers that the Swarm could exert total suppression over the enemy in both the sky and the sea.
An hour later, almost all the enemy ships were on the verge of sinking.
Only then did the Zerg vanguard fleet slowly approach within five kilometers of the enemy.
The insects flying in the sky had already departed.
On the few remaining ships, soldiers stared blankly at the massive fleet appearing on the horizon.
The number of ships was so great that they stretched as far as the eye could see.
Countless scourges circled in the sky, reflecting the crimson clouds of the sunset.
“This is...”
The Admiral, covered in wounds and clinging to the last remains of his ship, stood and watched the scene in the distance.
Mutalisks beat their wings, and over a dozen 10,000-ton class Carrier Bugs sailed steadily across the water. Their entire bodies were pitch black, exuding a sense of raw, biological beauty.
“Is this really the end of the world?”
He could not comprehend why such a terrifying fleet had appeared.
They... seemed to be heading straight for the Mis Kingdom.
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