Chapter 75: Chapter 144 A Deadly Shot
A huge chase was on. A massive fleet totaling more than 25,000 ships were now on the hunt for blood. This group was led by none other than Madam Zheng, Queen of the pirate faction. She was the one to lead from the front, and although this was the second day, she was quickly capitalizing on the fact that the enemy was disoriented from her previous strategy.
This was a risky move, to say the least, the sun would be going down in a few hours and that would not be nearly enough time to do any crippling maneuvers to their enemies. Nonetheless, all of the elders of the Forever Pirates faction trusted their leader, and although she wasn't always right in her decisions, she tended to make the right choices when it counted.
The Vespers saw this unusual strategy of theirs and immediately reorganized their fleet into a defensive position, hoping to hold out until the pirates retreated at sundown. A few of the carriers started to let loose their fighter aircraft and the battle began once again. Both sides had their sturdiest ships out in front to blunt the force of the attacks, another line of highly maneuverable ships to strike whenever they see an opportunity, and a variety of other ships behind them that shoot from a distance. This type of formation was fairly common and fairly effective, but when both sides used this tactic, the winner would be the one could outlast their enemies' attacks.
An hour passed, then two, the sun only dipped further into the horizon but Madam Zheng showed no sign of backing down. Just before the sunset, she had ordered all of her ships to deploy their version of the smokescreen. It was a special concoction that, when used, had the ability to give mild poisoning effects to whoever was unaware of it.
None of the strategists would be affected too hard, but the soldiers under them were a different matter. The Forever Pirates had long ago prepared for this as they had mixed in an antidote, of sorts, into their soldiers' food from day one.
Though this type of chemical warfare was not very lethal, it still had a multitude of uses on the battlefield. Once deployed and spread out, the day had turned into the night but the battles were still yet to be anywhere close to ending. In the first few hours of the poisonous fog dispersing, the Vesper faction had no idea of how it was any different from any other kind of regular fog. However, once the reports kept piling up, they were prompted to action immediately. Giving out every last gas mask that they had in their inventory to the soldiers, but alas, there were not even enough for a fifth of the men.
This was when the Vesper's changed up their battle plans, they started to shift all of their forces within the fog outwards and those not already in the fog inwards. An easy thing to say, not so easy to do especially with such an overwhelming number of enemies right in front of you. The Vesper's decided to give up on their ships on the front line and switched positions with many of the other ships.
These new ships who had been given extra time to prepare were ready to fight in the fog as opposed to their previous counterparts. Makeshift masks were not uncommon and whatever the soldiers could find to limit the amount of poison to get into their system.
By this point, Madam Zheng had ordered her entire fleet to form into multiple layers of a semi-circle and advance the enemies. The front lines of the Vesper's were now in complete shambles as there were no reinforcements coming to aid them while the ships were switching about. The first few waves of semi-circles crashed into the new Vesper forces and another dangerous bout of explosions and curses rang loudly.
Madam Zheng once again looked out to the position to her northwest and southeast. There was nothing yet. She ordered some of her slowest ships to begin disembarking from this battle and head back to the main base. She kept doing this, and it kept getting noticeably clearer that the advantage that she once had was now going over to the other side.
This slight retreat of her slowest, but most powerful ships lasted for another two hours until she was clearly being pushed back. Finally, only Zheng Jing and Zheng Zhi Long were left to fight off the enemy off by themselves. It was tough, even with all of their elite guards fighting on the front lines as well as the two of them throwing everything they had at the enemy.
When they were finally given the order to retreat, their forces turned around in breakneck speed and they got out of there in an unbelievably short amount of time. Zheng Jing did, after all, have some of the fastest ships out of all of the Forever Pirates, Zheng Zhi Long was a fair bit slower, but he could hold his own when things really got going.
The problem was, there were still many enemy ships right on their tail. Even if they were in no danger of being caught by them, they could still shoot from a distance. As if on cue, Madam Zheng began to show her first action for the first time within this tournament. She had her most powerful personal ships would be giving them a hand in escaping. What she was known for is that her crew had the most accurate, and most precise shots.
These were what she drilled into them ever since the first day of the tournament. Her motto was, if you can hit an enemy ten times out of ten, there would be more ammunition to sink more ships. By far, there was no one her equal in this aspect, and for good reason too. She had a secret training regiment that many in the Chinese community would kill for.
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