Somewhere off the north coast of Rodenius

August 31st, 1639, late afternoon

The ships were incredibly fast! They had traversed nearly 500 kilometers in about 8 hours, meeting the enemy fleet at about 6 pm. However, the sea of sails ahead of them began to unnerve Brywhal, reigniting his doubts about Usean power.

Lourian Eastern Subjugation Fleet

Vice-Admiral Schaukun basked in the light of the setting sun. "What a beautiful view," he thought, looking over the vast 5000-ship fleet. This was the glorious fleet that would trap Qua Toyne and cut Quila from its parent state. Six years of preparation have culminated in a grand fleet, possibly able to challenge the Parpaldia Empire! No, it was still too dangerous. He remembered that Parpaldia had developed a "gunboat", specifically designed to combat enemy ships.

Suddenly, a loud thumping noise interrupted his musings. A strange boxy thing was flying towards his fleet. He felt a sudden spike of fear as he watched the unknown object approach.

"This is the Eurasian Navy. These are Qua Toynian territorial waters. Turn back at once or face annihilation. I repeat, turn back or-"

There was a person talking to them through the object…

Someone shot an arrow at it. After that, it turned around and flew away.

A short while later, a metal-covered island came into view, glinting in the setting sun. The island was approaching much too quickly. It was…moving? And it was extremely fast! Impossible! There were no ships that large!

Regardless, there was nothing the monstrosity could have been if it were not a ship. It slowed down as it approached the front of the fleet, slowly going in reverse to match the speed of the ships, positioning itself 300 meters away from the front.

"Turn around immediately, or face annihilation! We will fire if you continue! I repeat, turn around or we will fire on your fleet!"

While the ship looked quite frightening, it was still only one ship against 5000. Schaukun ordered his fleet to fire. His fleet began to part around the enemy ship as they sailed closer, drawing within 200 meters of the sides and shooting fire arrows at it. Ballistae were still out of range so they were not used.

The ship, unaffected by the fire arrows, still rapidly sailed backward out of range. It then turned around and sailed away, stopping 3 kilometers away.

"Haha, even they folded under the might of our fleet. But it is really fast for such a big ship. And they don't even use the wind…"

"We've taken fire. No damage."

"Cleared to return fire."

The twin-barrel 130mm AK-130 turret on the bow of the Ukraina rotated and aimed at the enemy fleet. Schaukun watched the movement curiously. What could the stick thing be doing?

A second later, the bow of the enemy ship exploded and a boom echoed across the waters.

"Did they blow themselves up? Hah-"

Before he could finish, the lead ship of his fleet detonated, raining human flesh, wood splinters, and metal shards on nearby ships. The rest of the remains sank under the waters.

"What?! We were hit from that far? Did it destroy our ship in one shot?"

The whole fleet was frightened by the display of firepower. Schaukun pulled out his manacom. "Communications! We have been engaged by the enemy flagship! Requesting wyvern support!"

"Request acknowledged. Sending three hundred wyverns to assist."

"Such powerful magic! A single shot destroyed an entire ship! But surely it takes a lot of energy so it can't fire repeatedly?"

"It's not magic. It uses explosives to destroy the enemy ship and the gun is automatically loaded so it can fire quickly."

"I see. Will the rest of the fleet be joining us?"

"The rest of the fleet is following up, although Ulyanovsk will stay behind because it is a ranged support ship."

Brywhal was confused. "The biggest ship is staying behind? Wouldn't it be the most powerful though?"

"It is an aircraft carrier, which means the ship sends air support to deal damage to enemy forces rather than the ship itself engaging enemies. The large size is because it needs to carry many aircraft and our aircraft need a runway to take off from," Kolesnyk replied as he looked at the radar screen. "Hmm, looks like the Lourians are sending in their air support as well."

Schaukun watched the "stick" smoke a bit and fall silent as six more ships came into view, advancing rapidly.

"Looks like that powerful magic gun can't be used repeatedly. We can easily overwhelm them with our superior…By the heavens! Even more of those behemoths showed up! Where are the wyverns?"

Suddenly, clouds of smoke began billowing out of the enemy ships as high-speed trails of light shot into the sky and flew over the Lourian fleet. Schaukun couldn't help but feel dread welling up inside him as he watched the lights streak toward the now-visible 300-strong wyvern squadron.

Unfortunately, 300 dwindled to 200 as the trails of light exploded, vaporizing 40 and knocking 60 more out of the sky. The squadron scattered but pressed on toward the 7 enemy ships.

Explosions began on the decks of the two biggest ships, raising Schaukun's spirits until he realized that the wyverns were much too far away and that more wyverns were falling. The lead ship with the powerful magic gun trained its gun on the remaining 75 wyverns, firing and reloading much faster than Schaukun had assumed before. The other ships joined in, and by the time the wyverns were within 3 kilometers, only 6 remained. The cannons then ceased their fire, but orange-red whips of light shot out of the ships and shredded the remaining wyverns. No wyvern stood a chance against the AK-630's GSh-6-30 30mm rotary cannon, which had a fire rate of 5000 rounds/min.

"..."

No one could believe the sheer power possessed by the enemy. To them, ships were not equipped for anti-wyvern combat; defeating one was a formidable task, let alone 300! It was horrifying, watching their strongest forces get turned into literal meat dust and blood vapors.

"What…are we…fighting against…?" whispered Schaukun.

What then followed would be later known as The Great Naval Massacre of Rodenius. It wasn't a massacre in a true sense, but the pathetic Lourian fleet was annihilated so one-sidedly it couldn't be called anything else.

Historically, naval battles were won and lost based on who was able to board whose ships, as ships were considered indestructible by their weapons. Everything depended on preventing boarding by opposing sailors, therefore, a fleet of 5000 ships would be undefeatable by a fleet of 2500, let alone 7.

But that was exactly what did not occur here. With the destruction of the wyvern squadron, the ships turned their weapons onto the Lourian fleet and opened fire.

Brywhal was rendered speechless. The fleet of 7 had effortlessly wiped out a 300-strong wyvern formation, and the admiral had even ordered the fleet to show off all of their available "shipborne anti-air weapons" instead of just using their "surface-to-air missiles" and vaporizing the entire squadron before they were visible.

"Now, we will commence firing on the enemy fleet."

The battleships Sovetsky Soyuz and Sovetskaya Ukraina aimed their 6 front 406mm railguns on a line of ships and fired. Almost instantly, two lines of 15 ships detonated, with the frontmost ships being effectively vaporized.

"What in the damned ASE? What is that destructive power?" asked Brywhal

Captain Kolesnyk replied. "Those are 406mm railguns. They fire extremely high velocity 406mm projectiles, using kinetic force to achieve the destruction. The enemy ships are so lightly armored that the shells can penetrate through many of them. Also, what is ae es ee?"

"It means Ancient Sorcerous Empire, more officially named the Ravernal Empire. They were a great enemy in ancient times, and some of your weapons match tales of theirs. Seems like you really are from another world if you don't know of them."

"Interesting."

Afterward, all of the ships began launching their anti-ship missiles at the most concentrated enemy locations, each destroying several warships due to their large explosive contents and the enemy warships being very close to each other. Main guns boomed repeatedly, each shot destroying a ship. The battleships' smaller 152mm and 100mm guns flashed, thunderous booms following. The ships began sailing closer to use their small-caliber autocannons, which were more than enough to shred the wooden hulls of Lourian warships.

These Useans are truly powerful, thought Brywhal.

Vice-Admiral Schaukun was despairing. He could surrender, but he doubted his men would live, especially after the massacre at Gim. He could continue to fight, but the Eurasian fleet had proved themselves to be invincible demons from his worst nightmares.

The only thing he could do was to retreat, as they were initially requested to do so. But as he was about to order a retreat, a group of flying objects appeared from the direction of the Eurasian ships. Unknown to him, they were a squadron of Su-44s and Su-75s from the aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk. The steel dragons flew over his ship, dropping objects and releasing light arrows on the ships in the back of the formation. The ships exploded, their wreckage preventing him from turning his fleet around. The dragons then turned around and shot light bullets at the other ships. There wasn't anything Schaukun could do in the face of such overwhelming force other than surrender or be annihilated now. Just then, a shell landed on his ship, blowing it to pieces. Schaukun's last thought before his sight faded to darkness was pure regret at having ignored the warnings to turn back.

The victorious Usean fleet picked up the remaining Lourian men in the sea, transferring them to the Ulyanovsk's deck (after the deployed aircraft returned and were stored in the hangar), where they could be easily seen.

Meanwhile, the Lourians were wondering what happened to the 300 wyverns they had sent out. They had been gone for far too long. Could they have been wiped out? 300 lost out of the 1000 wyverns that Louria possessed was a devastating blow. Could the enemies be aided by the legendary dragon king Bahamut? No one had any idea what could have happened.