Apart from his range superiority, Mogensha wouldn’t be fighting alone. He was still covered by a human meat shield named Reef. Thus, Sheyan’s goal was very simply – to engage in an exceedingly lengthened long range combat with the opposing contestants!
"The outcome of a battle, should be already decided from the beginning. If not, the battle shouldn’t be fought."
For some unknown reason, that sudden phrase popped up in Sheyan’s mind.
In actual fact, Sheyan truly held an invincible position right from the start of this battle; because if any mishaps were to occur, like the opposition occupying superiority in terms of long range bombardment, the Hill Maiden could easily speed up and blatantly flee!
Very quickly, the gap between both parties gradually diminished to 800 metres. With both sides being equally susceptible to the bumpy seas, the accuracy of two artillery cannons placed at the ships’ bow/stern would be fairly ‘impressive’ at 3%.
Under normal circumstances, a ship would have to steer to its broadside before opening fire with multitudes of cannon; in order to inflict severe wreckages to the opposition, thus curbing the horrendous accuracy with quantity. Instead, with both ships uniformly sailing forward with high speed, a scenario as such would be simply impossible.
Following the diminishing gap of both parties, Sheyan suddenly whispered several words into Mogensha’s ear. Mogensha firstly revealed an amazed countenance, before an enlightened one as he smile mischievously while nodding.
As the long range battle commenced, the contestants failed to perceive the sinister intentions of Sheyan! Contestants who possessed long range assaulting capabilities unleashed their abilities one after another, while Mogensha retaliated with steady burst of fires.
Yet strangely after 10 seconds of their firefight, shield Reef who was blocking the front had already released several muffled groans. Instead, none of the opposing contestants had seemingly been shot.
While the contestants were laughing and jeering at Mogensha’s clumsy shooting skills, they suddenly heard blood-curdling screams from behind. As it turns out, Mogensha had been targeting his shots against the sailors on board! One could fathom how deliberate Sheyan’s thought process was; attempting to slay contestants spanning across the vast ocean while being protected by the 40% damage reduction and near-death state, wasn’t realistic at all. Annihilating the opponents for the benefits of their blood keys, would be excruciatingly difficult for such a confrontation
Instead in the perspective of those pursuing contestants, they probably weren’t proficient with the technicalities of maritime voyage. Hence, with the demise of their piloting pirates, their desire to freely sail the seas would be gravely impaired.
That was why Sheyan had notified Mogensha to obliterate those storyline pirates! Besides, hiring pirates was an exceedingly costly and strenuous affair. By withering away their pirate manpower, it was equivalently to plundering their energy and wealth. By weakening the engine of the opposition, it would become increasingly difficult to vie against the trio. In this manner, external pressure faced by the trio when accomplishing their mission would be comparatively lessened.
Not a single sails operating pirate was left after Mongensha consecutively gunned down 7 of those pirates. Pondering about their painful future, the contestants bawled in frantic imitation as they began aiming at the pirate crew of Sheyan’s ship.
Yet sadly, why would Sheyan allow them that liberty?
Earlier on, Sheyan had already ordered most of the sails to be fastened in an evasive position, while he was unafraid of getting shot, would personally operate the main sails. But in this manner, though the ship’s efficiency and speed would be impacted nega
tively.
Nevertheless, the pursuing ships no longer dared to employ skilled pirates to operate their sails, with the amount of individuals managing the sails naturally plunging substantially. Thus, both sides remained on even grounds.
Furthermore after the Hill Maiden’s restructuring, her cannon ports had all been scraped off. In their place, were twenty rowing positions! Therefore, the disparity between the propelling impetuous of both ships became greater with such circumstances. If Sheyan wished to throw them off, it would be as easy as a matter of seconds.
Witnessing themselves falling into the opponent’s snare, the pursuing contestants were all incomparably enraged; as they commenced crazed assaults against Sheyan’s ship. A contestant in particular even spared no efforts in raising a guided missile launcher, analogous to the FIM-92 Stinger, and unleashed it towards the trio!
BOOM! A thunderous explosion resounded, as thick smoky fumes spiralled out of the Hill Maiden; a three metres wide hole had been exploded out at the ship’s stern. Fortunately, a third rate ship boasted of over 30,000 points of durability, and wouldn’t be so easily sunk.
At this instant, Sheyan immediately ordered to hasten the ship’s velocity. After leaving the attacking range of his rivals, Carpenter Spike was naturally dispatched.
Spike was indeed worthy of his reputation. With adequate assistance and a commotion of ‘Ding ding dang dang*’, he only required roughly ten minutes to completely mend the ship’s hole. Sheyan then immediately commanded for a massive detour, intending for a sudden thrust from the lateral side.
(TL: *sound effects of nailing and hammering)
The opposing contestants didn’t appear familiar at all to naval warfare tactics, and didn’t even utilize their crow’s nest for lookout. Instead, they only foolishly fixated onto their front, and were caught off guard by Sheyan’s speeding ship from the left. Due to this, Brother Black managed to silently dispatch off an additional 3 pirate sail operators before being discovered!
When the furious contestants wished to retaliate, the Hill Maiden had already swiftly pulled away with its supreme speed. In such a manner, this to-and-fro tussle dragged on till dusk. By now, the pirates of the opposing contestants had suffered severe casualties, and none was willing to step up to the masts to control the sails. This signified they had utterly abandoned the ship’s flexibility!
After numerous rounds of tussles, some could already sense things were turning awry, where one of the third rate ship having fled earlier on. After a discussion between the contestants of the remaining ship, they decided to wholly focus on defence; propping up defensive artillery boards by the hull of the ship. Akin to a rigid dead fish, their lonely ship drifted flatly along the ocean surface; releasing an impression of true misery. If they hadn’t harboured malicious designs to pursue and pillage Sheyan, then they wouldn’t have degraded to this state.
By this point, Sheyan wouldn’t turn soft-hearted, but allowed Brother Black to slowly carve away at the meat with a blunt knife. After his massacre deterred the remaining pirates from resurfacing, he followed up by targeting the main mast of that ship. Still, a sniper was present within that ship, but was still relatively lacking in that particular field. With every released gunfire, the sniper had to wait for nearly a minute before being able to take another shot.
With Reef and Sheyan alternating in protection, that sniper could not offer a single threat to Mogensha! During the latter stages, that sniper even ceased his futile assaults. Besides, his sniper rifle ammunition required costly utility points to purchase.
After persistent chiselling of half an hour, the three masts of the opposing third rate ship had snapped and toppled clamorously; offloading into the sea with a soaring splash. Nonetheless, Brother Black had expended several thousands worth of utility points in ammunition to deal such severe damages onto the ship. With its tragedious state, even a professional carpenter like Spike would require 2-3 days to fully mend it. What more those contestants who probably didn’t possess such a crew mate?
All in all, it would minimally delay the contestants a precious 48 hours, for them to slowly sail their broken mast ship back to Tortuga. Factoring in the collaterals of dozens of pirates, that was equivalent to 10,000 gold guineas of damages. To them, the actual valuation of 10,000 gold guineas would inevitably be more than 10,000 utility points.
Indeed, this was a harsh reprimandation that Sheyan had issued to them – to refrain from provoking those they couldn’t afford to! In Sheyan’s perspective, the hardest phase had yet to come. By beating those contestants into fear, they wouldn’t dare to impeded whatever plans he had for his future affairs! Of course, if those contestants failed to remain tactful and provoked him, then he would vilify himself and murder them for their keys.
The following voyage was implemented at maximum pace. With the restructured Hill Maiden in addition to experienced pirate sailors, its speed had minimally been raised by 30% as compared to its first entry into Tortuga. Hence, even though the distance between Port Royal and Tortuga spanned over thousands of nautical miles, the Hill Maiden arrived within 20-30 nautical miles of Port Royal after smooth sailing for two days and two nights.
Naturally, with the Hill Maiden being a former active warship of the British Royal Navy, it was still absolutely impossible to swagger freely into Port Royal. Fortunately, Port Royal was accoladed as a shipping hub, which resembled the ‘Quanzhou’ and ‘Guangzhou’ of China’s Song Dynasty.
Thus, there were certainly existence of smuggling piers and harbour nearby Port Royal. Leaving behind those savage pirates who had illustrious reputations that could be easily identified to safeguard their ship, he brought along Joshamee and another 7-8 mates who were familiar with the terrain, before they ascended ashore onto the smuggling ports. Afterwards, they rode a carriage and headed off for Port Royal.
In comparison to Tortuga, Port Royal had an amplified beauty and elegance; white sandy beaches, green coconut and palm trees, layers of buildings with neat perimeters, and even a lofty and impregnable fort and battery. Everything present annotated discipline as well as prestige. Apart from that, marines could be seen patrolling occasionally.
Those marine guards were adorned with honorary uniform, with its most striking decoration of glamourous red and white; particularly impressive were their white wigs and red outer coats. Their cutlasses shimmered bright as snow, as were their slender stockings. Viewing with a pair of present day eyes, those stockings appeared like high thick leather boots of females. They marched arrogantly like roosters with their erected chests, and ushered an impression of extreme profoundness.
If Sheyan had brought along Philip and others, their hearts would sting with bitterness upon seeing their former colleagues.