Just when the pirates were allughing and celebrating their victory in advance, Diana heard Zach''s order through her earpiece and shouted, "FIRE!".
Zach had handed over themand of the soldiers to Diana as she was the actual leader of the troops while Zach became their eyes and ears as the topmander.
The RPG wielding soldiers who had all camouged themselves perfectly using the tree branches, mud and moss all revealed themselves. They adjusted their postures in order to counteract the kickback from theunch of RPG ammo.
The moment they heard themand, several RPGs fired simultaneously towards the coordinates of the ind which Diana had alreadymunicated.
Explosion after explosion burst out on top of the ind. Fiery explosions engulfed the entirety of the pirate fleet except for those who had stayed back onboard the ship as protection and necessary backup force in case the vanguard needed support from behind.
Pieces of charred flesh flew around in all directions as one of the explosions took ce right in the center of a small group of pirates while the others only missed the heart of the pirate force by a little margin.
Bewildered, the pirates looked around in a frenzied manner as they tried to figure out the location of their assants.
"IT''S A TRAP!" shouted one of the pirates who was smeared with the burning blood of hisrades. He seemed to have survived an explosion from quite close by. It was unknown whether he had used hisrade as a shield like a true pirate or had just gotten lucky that hisrade bore the brunt of it.
While the pirate kept on repeating his words of caution, not a single one of the remaining pirates could hear him even though he was shouting his throat raw. The sudden explosions right next to the surviving pirates had temporarily rendered them deaf.
Several pirates echoed his words as contemtion dawned on their faces as to why there were no guards at the periphery of the ind.
"We''ve been discovered. They were waiting for us toe." This was the only thought in the minds of the pirates as they tried to figure out how the owner of the territory knew that they wereing. This kind of nned and detailed ambush was only possible if the dark mage knew that they wereing.
Still, no one could contemte the true methods of a dark mage. They were far too mysterious and diverse in their capabilities.
As such, ckbeard attributed the deadly fireworks disy to the unpredictable dark mage who used such an unorthodox method to wee their arrival.
"Don''t panic. It is the trick of that dark mage. Follow me. We will pierce through to the center of the ind in one go." Shouted ckbeard towards his subordinates as he began to advance with a watery shield in front of him.
Panic ensued anyway as the pirates stumbled their way out of the explosion affected area. Since their hearing had yet to be restored, ckbeard''s words fell on deaf ears and barely anyone noticed his leading figure. Every one of the pirates was worried about their own well being in the face of raining death and destruction.
The pirates couldn''t decipher the mystery behind the sts since there were absolutely no enemy around them no matter how much they scoured their surroundings.
Although ckbeard was just as startled and dumbfounded by the sudden ambush, he didn''t linger on that line of thought. Hebeled the dark mage Zach as ''extremely dangerous'' in his mind as he tried to think of ways to fend off the onught of fire.
By this time, the Smith family soldiers were already done loading ammo in the RPGunchers. A new barrage of fire was ready to beunched.
In the aftermath of the explosions, no one heard ckbeard''s orders so he had to resort to visual aid. He began to chant in a heavy voice and the water element began to condense around him from all directions. The wall was thick enough to hold off another wave of bombardment.
Seeing the shimmering blue water wall, the pirates began to congregate behind ckbeard under the threat of fiery explosions taking ce all around them.
Although the water wall provided an effective separation between the iing explosions and ckbeard''s crew, it was not enough to hold off the effect of the explosion itself. <novelsnext>I think you should take a look at </novelsnext>
The shockwaves from the explosions and the super-heated steam created from the contact of fire and water blew off in all directions essentially sublimating the pirates with pitifully low strength.
Even some low-level mages were caught off guard and were blown away amidst the storm of fire and water.
The safety of the water shield therefore proved to be an illusion as the effect of the explosions could not be mitigated despite the fact that the leader of the pirate crew was an A level mage skilled in the water element. Unfortunately, he wasn''t up against a purely elemental attack. Otherwise, he might have seeded in counteracting its effectpletely with water wall.
Knowing that the wall wasn''t strong enough to protect his men, ckbeard had to alter his strategy of attack. Instead of pushing forward like a spear thrust with him taking the lead and his men following behind him, he took on a more scattered approach with his power converging towards the center from all directions like several streams merging together to shape a giant river.
"Disperse…scatter…get away from each other…and…" ckbeard turned around and issued the new set of orders. He ignored the new barrage of explosions while simultaneously strengthening the water wall with his mana. He was confident of, at least, defending against the explosions with minimal losses after having used this much amount of mana for a momentary increase in defense.
This time, the sound of the explosions was greatly muffled as if the water around the explosions had snuffed its breath by swallowing it down its giant maw.
The pirate crew heard the words of their captain and knew what to do. They had previously adopted simr strategies whenever they were up against a powerful opponent capable of killing them by the scores.
The group broke down into smaller groups as they ran behind their leader. Slowly they began to scatter in different directions like they had opted for different paths for the same destination.
Some of the more cowardly members directly turned tail and ran in the direction of their ships. They were terribly frightened by the apocalyptic scene from before. Some had seen theirrades being torn apart by the sudden impacts; some were bleeding from their ears unable to forget thest screams of their colleagues; while some were just cowardly and afraid of getting hurt.
They couldn''t go forward without burdening their heart into a cardiac arrest.
ckbeard didn''t bother about these people in this situation but he vowed to get rid of the cowards once he returned after thepletion of the mission. He was extremely dissatisfied with these people.
But dispersing the crowd was the only method he had to ensure the safety of his crew. As long as they advanced together, the chances of suffering losses at the hands of the enemy would have increased with each step taken towards the destination.
Zach had been waiting for this reaction from the enemies ever since he gave the order to rain down hell on them.
As themander of the battle, Zach had to think of his next few moves in advance by anticipating the reactions of the enemy.
Had it been him in ce of ckbeard, he would have taken the same decision. Therefore, he had prepared countermeasures for it as well.
Maneuvering the drones, Zach encircled the entire crew to keep them from leaving the ind before the fun he had nned for them began.
The machine guns slotted on the drones began to fire at hismand. The hail of bullets fell behind the pirate crew and conjured up a force field of raining metal that punctured holes in any pirate daring enough to cross the threshold in his attempt to rush back to the boats they had left on the shore.
Unable to retreat, the pirate crew had nowhere to go.
Zach had sessfully contained the targets and began to lure them towards the center once again.