151: Chapter 151 Night Raid on the Fleet, Bloodstained Deck (1)

Lu Hu pulled a small flag from his bosom—blue background with gold edges. There were no words on the flag face, only an enlarged version of the blue seal that Lu Changyuan had pressed onto the bamboo slips when signing the transfer order for the Sin Battalion.

He inserted the small flag into the base of the flagpole by the Pier.

Fog had risen on the sea—not the thin mist of last night, but a layer of extremely thick gray fog pressing in from the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench.

The sound of ocean tides came from within the fog—low, urgent, one wave overlapping another.

Beneath the fog layer—the seawater in the morning light shimmered with a dark green color that had churned up from the deep water layers.

The transport fleet had formed up at the Pier.

Seven ships lined up in a row, the freshly painted Blue Moon Island emblem on their hulls appearing and disappearing in the fog.

Commander Cai stood at the bow of the first ship—clutching that nautical chart in his hand.

The route on the chart was marked in two segments—the first was the original route to the Storm Gorge, and the second was in the direction of the Broken Star Reef.

Beneath the three characters for Broken Star Reef was pressed an extremely faint, dark red military seal.

Lu Changyuan stepped onto the deck.

Lu Hu followed behind him—his blade at his waist. The newly replaced leather cord on the hilt was hard to see in the fog, but his hand gripping the hilt had already pressed the cord deep into his palm lines.

"Set sail."

After the fleet sailed out of the fortress Pier, the sea fog began to thicken.

The gray fog pressing in from the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench spread across the sea surface—the fog layer was extremely thick. As the bow cut into it, the fog rolled to both sides, the parting mist looking like water cleaved by a blade.

Commander Cai stood at the bow of the first ship, clutching the chart—the chart had become soft from the moisture in the fog, its corners drooping downward.

He slapped the chart against the ship's gunwale and turned back to shout toward the stern.

"Spread out—maintain distance!"

The seven ships widened the distance between them in the fog.

There was a gap of about thirty zhang between each ship—this was the distance they could see each other during the day, but in the fog, anything beyond thirty zhang was reduced to just a gray shadow.

The flagpole on the lead ship turned into a blurred vertical line in the fog.

Lu Changyuan stood at the stern of the third ship—beneath his feet was the third transport ship of the Sin Battalion, with one hundred and twenty Sin Battalion soldiers crouching on the deck.

The soldiers were not crouching on the deck because they were tired—it was because the ship was moving through the fog, and standing up made it difficult to see the deck plates beneath their feet.

Some were still trembling while crouching—it wasn't their knees that were shaking, but their shoulders.

The trembling of their shoulders was more visible in the fog than their knees.

The fleet veered about twenty degrees to the west.

The original route marked on the chart led to the Storm Gorge—but the military order left by Chu Yunfei had included the Broken Star Reef in the course.

Commander Cai wiped the mist from his face with the back of his hand and flipped the chart over—the dark red military seal beneath the three characters for Broken Star Reef was unclear in the fog; he could only feel the raised texture of the ink paste.

They had reached the waters of the first defensive line.

Broken wooden planks were floating on the sea surface.

The broken planks floated out from the fog—first one piece, then three or four side-by-side, and then an entire patch.

There were marks on the edges of the planks where they had been bitten—the bite marks were uneven, the tooth marks thick and short; they were neither human teeth nor the teeth of sea beasts.

There were also scraps of cloth stuck to the planks—gray-blue, the same color as the military robes worn by the Sin Battalion soldiers.

The edges of the cloth scraps were bleached white by the seawater, but half of an Array Pattern remained on the fabric—the defensive Array Pattern of the fortress military emblem, with the end of the pattern torn off.

There was dry heaving on the deck.

The sound of dry heaving came from the stern—a young soldier crouching behind a cargo crate at the stern, looking less than twenty years old, had his hand over his mouth, with clear water dripping from between his fingers.

It wasn't vomiting—there was nothing in his stomach.

A veteran who had been crouching there for three years glanced at him without mocking him.

The veteran handed over his own water skin—the action of handing it over was very slow, the mouth of the water skin swaying in the fog.

The young soldier took it, drank a mouthful, and then returned the water skin to the veteran.

The two men crouched behind the cargo crate, watching those broken planks on the sea surface drift past the sides of the ship.

The planks bumped against the hull—creating a very soft, muffled sound, then were pushed away by the ship's body, the fragments spinning in a circle on the sea surface before sinking.

Wei Chuan ran over from the bow—his foot slipped on the wet deck while running, and he steadied himself by bracing his hand against the gunwale.

He ran up to Lu Changyuan and lowered his voice—lowering it so that only Lu Changyuan and Lu Hu could hear.

"Young Lord—there is something bumping against the bottom of the ship. It's not a reef—it's alive."

Lu Changyuan placed one hand on the gunwale.

The wooden planks of the gunwale were vibrating—the frequency of the vibration was extremely low, not the swaying caused by waves.

The swaying from waves was a rocking back and forth, but the bumping at the bottom of the ship was a jarring sensation from below—as if something were rubbing its spine against the ship's hull underwater.

He turned back to glance at the stern—in the fog, the gray shadow of the fourth ship was visible, and further back, the fifth ship.

A muffled sound came from the direction of the bottom of the fifth ship—the muffled sound exploded underwater, and everyone on the deck felt it.

"Pass the order—" Lu Changyuan removed his hand from the gunwale. "All personnel, form up."

The horn sounded in the fog.

The bronze horn of the Sin Battalion—the person blowing the horn was still that same soldier whom Commander Cai had casually grabbed, but now the horn call he blew no longer cracked.

The horn call was passed from the first ship to the last ship—the interval between the horn calls on each ship was about three breaths.

Within three breaths, the people on the deck began to stand up—the knees of the people who had been crouching and shuffling on the deck for three months were finally lifted.

Commander Cai jumped from the first ship to the second ship—when jumping, his feet landed on the cable between the two ships, the cable sinking slightly into the water surface before pulling taut again.

He roared on the deck—the sound of his roar was torn into fragments by the sea wind, but every fragment carried the same word.

"Form up—Small Circle Formation! Thirty men per circle!"

His hands gestured in the fog—his thick, short fingers pointed to various positions on the deck, and those who were pointed at ran to their positions.

Someone tripped over the cable under their feet while running—the person who fell was grabbed by the back of their collar by the person behind, lifted up, and pushed into their formation position.

The defensive battle formation taught by Luo Qingcheng—every thirty men formed a small circle formation, thirty men standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle, facing outward.

The people in the circle set their shields upright by their feet—the bottom edges of the shields were locked into the drainage grooves on the deck.

Nine small circle formations pieced together to form one large circle formation—the distance between the small circle formations was two zhang, and between those two zhang were the messengers and reserve positions.

The focal point of the battle formation was at the center of that middle small circle formation—only one person stood at the focal point position, and the person standing at the focal point could perceive the tightness or looseness of the entire formation's positions.