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Chapter 222 - A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 22:02:48 +0000 UTCAs Ethan stared at the ships in the distance, his lips curled into a snarl.
“Sigmusi Ships on the horizon,” he said. “Twelve of them. Unknown number of [Kinetic Mages] on board, but last I knew they typically put eight [Kinetic Mages] on each ship. That should mean around a hundred enemy Mages in total.”
Ethan’s mother cursed. “Twelve ships. Must be half of the Sigmusi Colonia’s navy here. Why are they bothering us? Don’t they have enough nonsense to deal with in their own territory? Why aren’t they fighting monsters or trying to control the interior of their nation?”
“Maybe the Sigmusi Imperia lent them a few ships.” Ethan grimaced. “We don’t know what the condition of the central continent is like - though I admit, I’m not sure if I believe that explanation.” He looked thoughtful as he scanned the ship. “Under Allira’s eyes, I doubt any of the [Sailors] on the ship are traitors. Our departure was not very public, so the Sigmusi is unlikely to have knowledge of our plans or our route. Either they found another way to gather information, or we are unlucky.” Ethan sighed. “Either way, it doesn’t matter right now. THe fact is, they’re here, and we’re in for a fight. Alice, can you tell if the other side has any Immortals?”
Alice squinted at the Sigmusi ships. “No, I can’t. It’s too far away.”
“That’s unfortunate. Keep an eye on their ships and let me know if you see anything important.” Ethan glanced at his mother, before he sighed. “I’ll try tossing a volley at them and see what happens. Keep your perks up too, and let me know if you get any useful information.” Then, Ethan’s magic tendrils flexed as he hurled a volley of glass vials at the nearest of the twelve enemy ships.
Alice held her breath as the enchanted glass vials sped towards the ship. She remembered that during the fight with Emilia, Ethan had used all kinds of unusual items to help fight against the Sigmusi Immortal. If Ethan could get even one of the glass vials onto the enemy ship, it might torch the ship before it could even get in range. They might not be stuck in a dangerous fight. Her hopes surged as the glass vials neared their target.
Her hopes were crushed a moment later as a volley of tiny steel triangles flickered out of the ship and tore through the flying glass bottles. Most of the glass bottles exploded in a shower of glass and liquid. The moment the liquid inside of each vial came in contact with the air, it ignited, turning into a raging bonfire that ripped into the ocean. It meant nothing. Not a drop of the fiery liquid landed upon an enemy ship.
Alice narrowed her eyes as she looked at the source of the steel triangles. It was faint, but Alice was pretty sure she could distinguish a walking cloud of mana present on one of the Sigmusi ships.
Alice’s heart dropped.
“I think I see an Immortal,” she said.
Myra squinted into the distance, and then she nodded.
“Damn. I think I recognize him. Looks like Brandon.”
Ethan grimaced. “They have an Immortal waiting for us? This really does feel like a premeditated ambush. Perhaps they managed to extract information about us in some other way.”
“Or they might be out here for a different reason. We can figure it out later,” said Myra. She sighed. “It doesn’t matter right now. What are your odds against Brandon, assuming Allira remains asleep and that I remain focused on piloting the ship?”
“We were about evenly matched last time we fought. His build is similar to mine,” said Ethan. “However, his is a lot more… timer-oriented. He has bursts of time during which he experiences a ‘mana high,’ granting him access to an expanded number of magic tendrils and mana. He constantly rotates in and out of this state, so he has bursts of time where he’s incredibly threatening, followed by periods of time where he’s much weaker. Normally, he’s quite careful about ensuring that he either wins a battle or flees before he exits a mana high, but right now he has a lot more backup than we do. It’s hard to say what that means for us.”
Myra sighed. “Got it. So if we find a way to deal with the backup, you can at least hold him off?”
“That should be possible, yes,” said Ethan.
“I’ll try to reroute to the south for a bit.” Myra’s eyes lit up with savage glee a moment later. “Actually, this might work. Ethan, keep attacks away from our ship, but don’t worry about counterattacking unless you see a good opportunity. Alice, dear, could you take charge of firing a few projectiles at the enemy, layered with some kind of way to prevent them from firing those projectiles right back at us? I believe Ethan mentioned that you either had some enchanted items or some Perks that could accomplish that. If you can catch a few [Sailors] off guard, they won’t be quite so eager to remain above deck. I want the non-Mages taking cover in those ships instead of paying attention. Let’s see if we can feed the fog a few Sigmusi ships to help even the odds a little.”
Alice blinked in surprise, before she nodded. She and Ethan began moving as Myra had requested. The moment the ships got within range, Alice started shooting projectiles at the Sigmusi [Sailors] she could make out, while Ethan used his mana to deflect projectiles heading towards their own ship. Meanwhile, the Illvarian ship swung south, instead of west. The Sigmusi navy quickly began chasing them, as the Mages and [Archers] on the enemy ship continued to try to snipe the [Sailors] and Myra.
Alice couldn’t help but notice how coordinated the Sigmusi navy was, in comparison to the Illvarian ship. The [Sailors] on the enemy ship had clearly taken Perks that were directly related to Naval warfare - several of them seemed to have a strong emphasis on a secondary [Archer] class. Unlike usual [Archers], their arrows didn’t seem built to fire arrows faster. Instead, their Perks focused on making their arrows larger and more powerful. Each arrow that soared towards the Illvarian ship needed to be deflected, or it would punch a hole through the Illvarian ship like a small ballista bolt. Despite being [Sailors] and [Archers], the Sigmusi [Sailors] were basically mini [Kinetic Mages] with a much slower rate of fire.
By contrast, the Illvarian [Sailors] had far more limited return fire. There weren’t any [Archers] on board with the right Perks to make themselves useful in a naval fight, Ethan and Brandon were holding each other off, and Doll was below deck because she was useless in a direct fight. Thus, it was mostly up to Alice, Cecilia, Myra, and the other [Kinetic Mages] to keep the ship intact under the rain of Sigmusi arrows.
Still, Doll’s weapons played their part in keeping the fight somewhat balanced. Giant ballista bolts, exploding crystals, and the occasional blast of boiling water or cloud of Perk-enhanced steam constantly flooded the Sigmusi ships, ensuring that their pursuers weren’t able to focus solely on whittling down the Illvarian ship. The Sigmusi navy had [Kinetic Mages] of their own, as well as an identified Immortal, which stopped Doll’s weapons from taking over the fight - but in all, the fight was surprisingly evenly matched, despite the Sigmusi having about twelve times their number.
While the stalemate meant that the ship wasn’t under immediate threat of destruction, the fighting was brutal. It was a slog of constant attacks, failed counterattacks, and desperate Perk activations. Every minute, Alice saw a [Sailor] or two on both sides of the conflict fall. The Illvarians and the Sigmusi were both slowly collapsing as their limited-use Perks ran out and mistakes on the battlefield raised the casualties. As the minutes ticked by, Alice’s heart began to sink. The Illvarian side didn’t feel like it was winning this battle. The losses on each side were about equal so far - but the Sigmusi had twelve times their number. There was no way this was sustainable for the Illvarians.
Even more frustrating was the battle between Immortals.
True to Ethan’s words, Brandon, the enemy Immortal, had an obvious and significant presence on the battlefield. Alice was beginning to think that Ethan’s intelligence about Brandon’s Perk set was incomplete. Every so often, Brandon would stop attacking entirely. Then, a few minutes later, he would unleash a massive storm of attacks, bewildering Ethan’s attempts to keep the other [Sailors] safe and sniping a few more crew members. Alice suspected that Brandon’s ‘mana highs’ weren’t tied to a timer, so much as created whenever he spent a long period of time not using mana. This created a constant fear of Brandon’s next burst of attacks, since Ethan seemed unable to fully fend him off during a period of high attacks.
Seeing the constant cycle of death and damage made Alice grit her teeth. The Sigmusi Immortal was dangerous. Far more dangerous than she wanted to admit. Anyone who could give Ethan a run for his money was someone she needed to pay the utmost attention to, or she might end up with a piece of shrapnel in her skull.
After nearly ten minutes of this constant cycle of death, attacks, and counterattacks, Alice started to feel exhausted. She hadn’t been forced to rely on any of her temporary-boost Perks, such as {Adrenaline Rush} - but the Illvarian ship was starting to run out of manpower. Out of the original two sailors, nearly ten percent been injured or killed - and the fighting was disastrous enough that there was barely any space to breathe. Restoring the injured to full fighting strength took time and mana that the few [Organic Mages] on deck didn’t have.
Alice glanced at the fog to their east, and noticed that it was far closer than before. Normally, this would have filled Alice with dread - but now she could only hope that Myra’s maneuver worked. Now she understood why Myra was taking such a big risk in trying to weaponize the fog. If they didn’t do something crazy, they would never get out of this situation intact.
“All right!” Yelled Myra, a few moments later. “It’s almost time! Everyone, please activate speed-boosting Perks in ten seconds! We’re going to need every drop of speed we can get! Ethan, when I say go, unleash your best attacks on their ships - we want them to be distracted for this, and you’re a big part of that! Alice, Cecilia, other [Kinetic Mages], try to snipe the highest level enemies you can find. We’ve got one shot at this!”
Alice tensed. This was the moment she was afraid of - the moment to see whether Myra’s plan would work or not. If this didn’t work, Alice had no clue what they would do - perhaps their only other option would be to wake up Allira and hope she could pull a miracle out of thin air. That is, if Allira wasn’t already awake - Alice suspected that an Immortal would have a hard time sleeping through this racket. The fact that Allira hadn’t intervened yet probably meant that she couldn’t - her Perks and stamina were too drained to make an impact on the battlefield.
A few moments later, Ethan grinned viciously.
“Close your eyes, and don’t open them until I tell you to!”
Alice immediately obliged, and closed her eyes. Then, Ethan unleashed a massive charge of flames, light, and heat into the horizon using his father’s sword. It looked rather different than it had during the fight with Emilia.
This time, Ethan’s heat blast had been converted into a giant wave of light. Despite having her eyes closed, Alice still found herself blinking stars out of her eyes for a few seconds, before her vision cleared up. She looked at the Sigmusi ships in the distance.
Much like Alice, it looked like the Sigmusi navy had been blinded by Ethan’s blast of light. Unlike Alice’s ship, they hadn’t had any warning or time to cover their eyes. One of the ships had even been caught mid-maneuver, and Alice could see rainbow mana coursing through the timber of the wood as it drunkenly veered to the side. It looked like the ship was under the influence of a Perk that was trying to help it maneuver - but since the Perk-user had lost sight mid-Perk usage, it was quickly turning into a disaster.
A moment later, there was a crunch as that ship rammed into another. A few rainbow perks flickered through the ships, picking up some of the debris from the collision and fastening chunks of wood back into place - but Alice still couldn’t help but relax as she saw two of the ships collide into each other.
A moment later, a storm of Illvarian attacks fell upon the blinded ships.The enemy Immortal reacted quickly, as did several of the hostile [Kinetic Mages]. It didn’t take long for them to get things back under control. While the storm of Illvarian attacks had killed several [Sailors], it was still a drop in the bucket compared to the wall of Sigmusi ships.
However, the Illvaria’s hadn’t spared the two ships that had crashed into each other. In fact, most people, Alice included, had focused their attacks on those ships. Both ships now resembled swiss cheese rather than proper sailing vessels. Most of the on-board sailors were dead, and the rest were either bleeding out or trying to evacuate. Another of the Sigmusi ships veered off course, and started heading towards the wreckage of the two ships as rainbow mana started to ripple through its wooden hull.
Moments later, the fog finally caught up to the Sigmusi ships - and swallowed an entire Sigmusi ship. The ship sank into the fog and disappeared without a trace, leaving nine intact Sigmusi ships remaining.
The other Sigmusi ships ignored the fog at first - until they realized that the other ship had made no signs of reappearing. That was when they finally seemed to realize that the glowing fog was dangerous. Several Sigmusi Mages turned their attention entirely away from the Illvarian ship and towards the fog itself, as they futilely tried to tear into it using projectiles, heat magic, electricity, and everything else they could throw at it. However, the fog didn’t respond - it didn’t even seem to notice their attacks.
To Alice’s relief, the fog also didn’t seem to be moving towards them anymore. It was hard to tell, because the fog was already full right now - but it looked like it was drifting towards the nearest Sigmusi ship, instead of hounding their ship.
In other words, the fog didn’t care about the previous several days of chasing and sailing. It just followed the nearest meal.
Alice felt a small breath of relief. There were still nine Sigmusi ships to deal with - but a few of them were caught up trying to rescue their comrades, and others were distracted by the fog. They had bought themselves time and thrown the battlefield into chaos. With this, the Illvarians might even have enough breathing room to escape, or even -
A bolt of electricity tore through the air, snapping Alice out of her thoughts as {Adrenaline Rush} activated. With barely any time to react, even in the slowed-down world of {Adrenaline Rush}, Alice used her kinetic magic to hurl herself out of the way, before a bolt of lightning crashed into the deck of the ship and burned a harsh tattoo into the deck of the ship.
Alice shivered, as she glanced at the [Electromagnetic Mage] that had nearly killed her during her moment of distraction. The Sigmusi were thrown into chaos, but that didn’t meant the threat was over.
Alice grimaced, even as a new swarm of Perks surged through the Illvarian ship and they started to pick up speed. The Sigmusi temporarily fell behind, allowing the Illvarians to get out of range as the [Archers] and [Kinetic Mages] got too far away to continue exchanging blows. Alice gritted her teeth.
They had thrown off the Sigmsi, and they had also distracted the fog. Allira would have ways to actually contribute to the next battle. However, the Sigmusi didn’t seem like they would give up their pursuit - and they were still heavily outnumbered, even if they had escaped for now.
They had bought some time, but the enemy would be back.
Author’s Note:
Join my Discord! (I’m at least sometimes active there, while I admit that I don’t generally check the comments section. I’m not very active anywhere, though - writers are antisocial people, okay!)
Comments
Rain
TFCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
Syrahl
I noticed that too. The math ain't mathing.
Emblyon
Out of the original two sailors, nearly ten percent been injured or killed. I can't help but feel there's something off about that number 🤔
