231: Chapter 231 Surprise Attack and Recovery, Fleet Arrives at Port

At the end of the Mao hour, the morning light on the horizon shifted from pale cyan to bright white—halfway through the shift, the bow of the first ship of the Royal Capital Fleet had already fully pierced through the sea mist.

Lu Changyuan stood on the stone embankment of the North Corner Berth at the Pier.

Leng Feng was on his right side—with an observation scope pressed against his right eye, the barrel aimed at the underwater undercurrent outlet on the east side of the Ring Reef.

A communication formation disk from Su Qingli was attached to the inside of Lu Changyuan's belt—the sensing end of the disk was connected to the outer monitoring circuit of the Receiving Formation in the Formation Affairs Room.

The disk transmitted the latest location of the main underwater fluctuation source every ten breaths—the previous location received was forty-eight li from the Ring Reef, with an assembly depth of about two hundred zhang underwater. Compared to half an hour ago—it had advanced nearly three li.

The one hundred members of the first page of the Sin Battalion were already in position on the Pier.

Commander Cai divided the men into two rows—the front row of fifty held heavy shields to guard the edge of the stone embankment outside the berth, while the back row of fifty prepared long spears and spare formation piles.

The formation piles had been temporarily added by Su Qingli during the Yin hour—each pile had a ring of miniature warning runes carved into its base, which could sense spiritual energy fluctuations within three hundred paces once driven into the ground.

Commander Cai drove the last formation pile into a crevice in the reef at the outermost edge of the stone embankment—the rune on the top of the pile flashed once—and then stabilized to a dark cyan color.

"The vanguard ships of the fleet—are slowing down." Leng Feng shifted the observation scope about ten degrees to the left.

"There are two more following the first ship—the distance between the three vanguard ships is less than three li. The main fleet is behind—visually estimated to be over ten ships. The muzzles of the spiritual cannons on the bows of the vanguard ships have already opened."

Lu Changyuan took the observation scope—in the barrel, the shield plate of the cannon muzzle on the left side of the first ship's bow was rising.

The spiritual cannon barrel beneath the shield plate was the standard ship-mounted model of the Royal Capital military—the caliber was about two feet, and three rings of the Spirit Gathering Array were carved onto the outer wall of the barrel. The barrel was turning to the right—the angle of rotation was aimed directly at the main force of the Haiyuan Clan in front of the Ring Reef. The gunners on the ship were already adjusting the firing angle.

"They aimed their cannons at the Haiyuan Clan before even entering the port." Lu Changyuan returned the observation scope to Leng Feng. "It's not to help Blue Moon Island—it's to clear a window for themselves to dock."

Leng Feng nodded.

The sea surface changed during the transition from the end of the Mao hour to the beginning of the Chen hour. The waterline in front of the Ring Reef had originally been flat—the morning wind pushed from the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench toward Blue Moon Island, and the surface of the seawater was pushed by the wind into waves less than half a foot high.

However, at a position about forty li outside the Ring Reef—the water surface began to show surges inconsistent with the wind direction. The surges were rolling up from underwater—the water masses that surfaced formed dark water pockets on the sea, spaced very closely together. The water pockets were pushing forward—the speed of their advance was nearly three times faster than the waves pushed by the sea breeze.

Su Qingli's communication formation disk vibrated three times in a row inside Lu Changyuan's belt—the main fluctuation source jumped from forty-eight li from the Ring Reef to forty li from the Ring Reef within ten breaths. The depth rose from two hundred zhang by nearly one hundred and twenty zhang—the dense formation was surfacing. The speed of surfacing was extremely fast.

Then the disk vibrated once more—this time a single, extremely short vibration. A new monitoring record: about thirty independent fluctuation sources had separated from the dense formation. The separated fluctuation sources were accelerating toward the front of the Ring Reef—the speed was nearly double the advance speed of the main formation.

"Probing." Lu Changyuan took the disk out from the inside of his belt—glancing at the spiritual light frequency on it. "The Haiyuan Clan is testing our firepower before the fleet enters the port."

Leng Feng aimed the observation scope at the front of the Ring Reef—in the barrel, the dark water pockets on the surface began to burst as they advanced. The first Abyssal Beast broke through the water from the center of a water pocket—its gray-blue carapace kicked up a splash nearly two zhang wide on the sea surface.

The Abyssal Beast's size was a circle larger than the elites that attacked the reef last night—the bone spurs on the edge of its carapace were longer, and the tips of the bone spurs reflected a damp, dark green luster under the sunlight on the water. Late Foundation Establishment Stage—at least thirty of them. More were following behind—the water pockets split open one after another—the speed of splitting was perfectly synchronized with the movement trajectory of the thirty independent fluctuation sources on the Receiving Formation.

The vanguard ship of the Royal Capital Fleet fired its cannons first.

When the spiritual cannons fired—the three rings of the Spirit Gathering Array on the outer wall of the barrel lit up layer by layer toward the muzzle. When the outermost ring lit up—the beam of spiritual power ejected from the muzzle was nearly two feet in diameter, and the beam shot from the bow toward the Ring Reef—carving a brilliant silver-white line across the sea surface.

The landing point of the line was about twenty zhang in front of the first Abyssal Beast—the spiritual cannon beam did not explode immediately after hitting the water. The beam traveled underwater for nearly half a breath—and then exploded directly beneath the Abyssal Beast formation. The exploding Spiritual Pressure pushed up from the bottom of the water—creating a giant crater nearly thirty zhang in diameter on the water surface. The first row of three Abyssal Beasts was overturned by the Spiritual Pressure exploding from the bottom—their gray-blue carapaces bounced nearly two zhang up from the water surface, then slammed heavily back into the water.

The Geng Metal Sword Intent Killing Array of Blue Moon Island lit up immediately afterward.

Su Qingli activated the outer attack circuit in the Formation Affairs Room—the sixteen formation eyes on the front of the Ring Reef simultaneously spewed out silvery-gray sword threads. The sword threads formed a dense, intersecting cutting net three li outside the Ring Reef—with the same density as the sword threads used to repel the elite assault last night. But this time, the advancement distance of the sword threads was nearly double that of last night—pushing from three li out to five li out, forming a second barrier right in front of the landing point of the Royal Capital Fleet's spiritual cannons.

The second row of Abyssal Beasts rushed into the sword thread net.

The sound of the silvery-gray sword threads cutting into the gray-blue carapaces traveled from the Ring Reef to the Pier—it was not the sound of metal colliding. It was the dry friction of a very thin blade scraping across a wet stone slab. The cuts made by the sword threads on the carapace were less than half a finger deep—the carapaces of the Late Foundation Establishment Stage Abyssal Beasts were nearly thirty percent thicker than those of last night's elites—but there were enough sword threads. Seven or eight sword threads wrapped around one Abyssal Beast simultaneously—drilling into the joints of the carapace—and then tightened in different directions at the same time. After the soft armor at the carapace joints was cut open by the sword threads, gray-blue body fluid sprayed out from the cuts. The sprayed body fluid burst into patches of misty spray on the sea surface.

The second vanguard ship of the Royal Capital Fleet also fired its cannons—this time two cannons fired simultaneously. Two spiritual cannon beams struck the left and right sides of the Abyssal Beast swarm—tearing the charging formation apart from the middle to the sides. A gap of about five li appeared in the middle of the torn formation—in the gap, three Abyssal Beasts entangled by sword threads were sinking. The remaining Abyssal Beasts did not continue to charge—their charge direction changed after the second wave of spiritual cannon strikes. They changed from charging directly at the front of the Ring Reef to slanting toward the right side—attempting to bypass the densest part of the sword thread net.

The third vanguard ship's cannon muzzle turned—locking onto the slanting direction in advance. One shot—struck less than thirty zhang directly in front of the Haiyuan Clan's slanting route. The shockwave forced the swimming speed of the two leading Abyssal Beasts to slow down by nearly half.

The probing assault lasted less than half a stick of incense from the first Abyssal Beast breaking the water to the last charge being forced back. The Haiyuan Clan left behind about seven or eight injured Abyssal Beasts—the remaining twenty-plus all turned around and retreated toward the Deep Water Zone. The speed of the retreat was even faster than the speed of the charge—leaving trails of dark body fluid dragged back on the sea surface. The tide was ebbing—the ebbing current pulled the floating gray-blue body fluid toward the Dragon Burial Trench.

Su Qingli's communication formation disk vibrated again: all the separated independent fluctuation sources had returned to the main formation. The assembly position of the main formation retreated from forty li from the Ring Reef back to nearly fifty-five li. The Haiyuan Clan was evaluating the fleet's firepower—the evaluation result was that it was not worth a hard charge for the time being.

"They will come again." Lu Changyuan put the disk back inside his belt. "The probe is not just about finishing the fight—it's about measuring the firing interval of the fleet's spiritual cannons. There was an interval of nearly twenty breaths between the first shot and the second shot—they noted it down."

Leng Feng looked down from the edge of the Pier's stone embankment—toward the underwater undercurrent outlet on the east side of the Ring Reef. The ripples on the water surface pushed eastward regularly during the ebb tide—but at the east undercurrent outlet, the water patterns were disturbed by a force pushing up from underwater. The range of the disturbance was not large—about a dozen zhang—but it was expanding outward. Something was surfacing from beneath the water.

Leng Feng aimed the observation scope in that direction—in the barrel, a string of dark cyan spiritual light from traction formation piles was rising from the deep water layer to the sea surface. The dark cyan spiritual light was scattered by the seawater underwater, turning into blurry spots of light—the arrangement of the light spots was exactly the same as the retreat route Leng Feng had drawn on the raid route map before departing.

"They're back."

Leng Feng's voice did not change. He adjusted the focus of the observation scope back a turn—when the light spots floated to a depth of about ten zhang underwater, the ripples on the water surface were broken through from below. The first person's head emerged from under the water—wearing the standard reef-colored helmet of the Sin Battalion. Then the second, the third—helmets emerged from underwater one after another, and Leng Feng counted them one by one with the observation scope. When he reached the twenty-sixth—his finger paused on the barrel.

"One is missing."

After all twenty-nine people surfaced—Leng Feng put down the observation scope and jumped off the stone embankment. The reef shoal extending eastward from the North Corner Berth of the Pier was exposed nearly half a zhang above the water during the ebb tide—the twenty-nine people climbed up from the shoal. Everyone's reef-colored leather armor was covered with remnants of dark green seaweed from the deep water layer—after being soaked in seawater for nearly two hours, the color of the leather armor had changed from reef gray to almost ink black. After the last person climbed up—Leng Feng took roll.

The missing person was named Feng Laosan. One of the three veteran soldiers with the best swimming skills in the first page of the Sin Battalion—he was covering the rear during the retreat, and was dragged away by a patrolling Bone Fish from the corner of an undercurrent. The location where he was dragged away was about three li west of the connecting pipeline—the bite force of a Bone Fish could bite through the protective spiritual energy shield of a Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivator within half a breath. When Feng Laosan was discovered, he was already in the Bone Fish's mouth—his partner looked back and saw the Bone Fish's closed mouth and a broken spear floating out from the corner of its mouth.

Leng Feng nodded. He did not ask more.

He led the twenty-nine people into the stone shed inside the Pier—Commander Cai had boiled ginger soup in the stone shed in advance. The hot steam of the ginger soup drifted out from the entrance of the stone shed—the twenty-nine people took the bowls in turn—and after drinking, they turned the bowls upside down on the stone slab. Leng Feng spoke for about twenty breaths with the deputy captain of the raid team—a veteran of the Sin Battalion with an old knife scar across his face—in the innermost part of the stone shed. Then he came out of the stone shed—walked onto the Pier's stone embankment—and walked up to Lu Changyuan.

"It's done. The joint of the connecting pipeline—was blown apart." Leng Feng took the observation scope from his waist—and used his finger to draw a line on the barrel. The location of the line was in the direction of the Lock Core, about sixty li underwater on the east side of the Ring Reef. "The Spirit Breaking Talismans detonated simultaneously at three spots on the joint—the outer wall of the pipeline was blown open with a gap nearly two zhang long. The position of the gap was behind the interface between the main pipeline and the first branch pipeline—nearly half of the spiritual injection pressure leaked out from the gap. The spiritual injection speed curve monitored on Su Qingli's Receiving Formation—should be able to see the change now."

Lu Changyuan flipped over the communication formation disk on the inside of his belt—the spiritual light frequency on the disk had just updated three breaths ago. The spiritual injection speed curve in the direction of the Lock Core was displayed on the disk as a broken line that had dropped by nearly twenty percent. The turning point of the broken line perfectly matched the detonation time mentioned by Leng Feng.

"The window—is extended by at least three more days." Lu Changyuan showed the disk to Leng Feng. "The spiritual injection progress of the Lock Core will remain below this speed until the pipeline is repaired. The Haiyuan Clan will need at least three days to repair a two-zhang-long gap in the pipeline. If they send people to repair it—Su Qingli's Receiving Formation will see it early."

Leng Feng nodded. "Twenty-nine people—can go into the water one more time."

"Rest first."

The first ship of the Royal Capital Fleet began to dock.

The spiritual cannon shield plate on the bow had been closed again—the cannon barrel had turned back to its original position. The sailors on the ship threw down four mooring ropes from the ship's side—the ends of the ropes were tied with iron hooks, and when the iron hooks landed on the Pier's stone embankment, they made a very crisp metal clanking sound. Four sentries from the Sin Battalion caught the ropes—hooked the iron hooks into the mooring bollards on the stone embankment—and then stepped back five paces.

The gangplank was lowered from the ship's side—when it was lowered, the iron teeth at the bottom of the gangplank bit into the grooves on the stone embankment. Military boots on the ship began to step down—the first batch to come down were the boarding infantry of the regular establishment of the Royal Capital military. The infantry wore the standard gray-blue uniforms of the Royal Capital military—with rank badges pinned to their chests, and standard-issue long swords at their waists. The rhythm of the boots stepping on the gangplank was extremely uniform—the time interval of each step landing was exactly the same.

Leng Feng raised the observation scope again—the barrel scanned every infantryman getting off the ship. Rank—all were privates and privates first class, no officers. The officers were still on the ship. When scanning the second batch—his finger adjusted the focus on the barrel.

The third batch of people getting off the ship were not wearing military uniforms.

They wore dark gray civilian clothes—there were no rank badges on the civilian clothes, but a cloud pattern was embroidered with dark gold thread on the inside of each person's right cuff. The style of the cloud pattern was the same as what Leng Feng had seen on Shen Qinghan's cuff last night—the mark of the Inspectorate. The leader was a middle-aged man—of medium height, his right hand hung at his side when walking, and his left hand was slightly bent and rested on the buckle strap of the Storage Pouch at his waist. When getting off the gangplank, he lowered his head to look at the iron teeth at his feet—making it impossible to see the back of his left hand clearly.

There were about seven or eight people in civilian clothes—they did not go far after getting off. They stood still on the Pier's stone embankment—and then began to look around. The direction of their looking was very regular—scanning first from the mooring bollards of the Pier berths toward the Inner Harbor warehouse, then turning from the warehouse's outer wall toward the front of the Ring Reef, and finally stopping at the outer formation eyes of the Geng Metal Sword Intent Killing Array on the front of the Ring Reef. One of them pulled a piece of paper from his sleeve—on the paper was a simple diagram of the formation defense distribution of Blue Moon Island.

Leng Feng handed the observation scope to Lu Changyuan. "They are not all soldiers."

Lu Changyuan took the observation scope—in the barrel, the middle-aged man in the crowd of civilians was crouching down—and rubbed his finger on the stone embankment. He was rubbing the salt frost on the surface of the stone embankment that had dried after being washed up by the sea waves last night. He rubbed the salt frost between his fingers—and then stood up and looked toward the Ring Reef. When his left hand was retracted—the back of his hand flashed in the morning light. The distance was too far—it was impossible to see clearly in the observation scope whether there was a scar on the back of his hand.

But Lu Changyuan remembered the posture of his left hand when it rested back on the buckle strap of the Storage Pouch. The palm was slightly bent—the second knuckles of the fingers were curled and hooked inward—consistent with the posture of someone who habitually held a brush or a seal when withdrawing their hand.

"Find out where they are staying."

Leng Feng acknowledged.

On the Pier—the second ship of the Royal Capital Fleet began to dock. There were more ships on the horizon waiting in line for berths. Blue Moon Island had only opened the last berth at the North Corner—the fleet commander stood on the deck of the first ship by the ship's side and looked down for nearly ten breaths—looking at the three blocked berths further north of the Pier's North Corner. The iron fences blocking the berths were all locked—and fragments of broken shields cleaned up from the Ring Reef last night were piled up in front of the fences.

The main force of the Haiyuan Clan reassembled fifty-five li away—temporarily not moving. Leng Feng's twenty-nine people finished drinking ginger soup in the stone shed—and began to spread out their soaked leather armor on the stone slab. The seawater on the leather armor seeped out onto the stone slab, leaving patches of dark watermarks.

The military boots of the Royal Capital Fleet—were already stepping on the Pier of Blue Moon Island.