A thousand ships were anchored at the docs leading to the third zone. Wind howled under the searing heat of the midday sun. It wasn’t the best weather to set sail, but waiting any longer was unwise. The last thing you want is to travel on an unfamiliar ocean in the middle of the monsoon.

  “Is everything ready?”

  Ria nodded at Zyrus and handed him a list of names. The new command structure was written in her elegant handwriting. In order to ease the future assimilation, Zyrus had ordered the players to create a command structure like the Streit bastion.

  Private, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Commander, and Marshal. Even though their current numbers weren’t enough to justify the use of such a ranking, he decided to go with it nonetheless. It would be better if the players felt somewhat unworthy of their grand title and worked harder.

  Ria was appointed a special position as the military advisor. There were a total of 10 marshals in the army– six of which were appointed. Kyle, Lauren, Shi Kun, Jacob, Druv, and Strongfist. Each marshal would oversee 100 commanders.

  Ignoring the ranks further below, even the 600 commander posts were barely filled by 15%. Just as Zyrus intended, it had a positive effect on the players as they worked harder to grab the empty spots before the new recruits. The 4 Marshal positions were especially alluring.

  ‘I already have some candidates in mind…’

  Zyrus recalled the past events as he looked at the map of Kyros. He was unsure if his regression had caused any butterfly effects in the lives of renowned people. Whatever the case may be, he had to reach the mainland to figure things out.

  *Clack*

  “You done? Everyone’s waiting,” Franken tapped his hoof on the door and called out the duo.

  “Mhm, let’s go,” Zyrus placed everything in the right place and left with Ria and Franken. He didn’t plan to come back here until the flag march was over. Thus, it was important to make sufficient preparations for Stephen to manage non-combat players.

  Ria left for the new carrack which acted as the central command center– Waarnemer. It was built with three masts and other stabilizing formations to handle the rough waters. The 150-foot-long carrack was built with a huge storage area that stored emergency supplies. High-calorie preserved food, repair materials, and many other strategic resources were prepared in excess.

  Apart from Ria and a few hundred players who were responsible for communication, there was no one else on the ship. Since Waarnemer would always remain at the center, Zyrus had decided to build an infirmary there as well.

  *Thunk*Thunk*Thunk*

  Zyrus slammed the twilight crusher on the deck with a flag in his hand. Mana-filled vibrations spread to every corner of the 1000 ships.

  “Hoist the anchors.”

  *Schhhk*

  It sounded as if a mighty cavalry was passing by as hundreds of iron anchors were lifted up. Just their clanking was enough to scatter the spectating fish.

  “Set sail!”

  *Flutter*

  Reddish black sails fluttered open, and at the same time, speed formations were activated. Nuckelavee’s essence was assimilated to a greater extent in the past few years. All the ships needed was a trigger that could cause a qualitative transformation.

  But even without it, the original ships that followed Zyrus from the start stood out among the rest. They were like a pack of fierce beasts that were let loose on the vast ocean.

  “Maintain the formation till we reach the border region.”

  “Roger that,” Ria replied via the cooms device and conveyed his orders. With the dragon of war at the front, the fleet was sailing in an arrow formation.

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  Two galleons– Tiamat and Sedna acted as the edge of an arrow. They sailed behind Zyrus and protected the middle ships from the flanks. Waarnemer was at the center at an equal distance from both Tiamat and Sedna. Lastly, Shi kun covered the rear with Phorcys.

  “Tell me if anything comes up,” Zyrus waved at Franken who was tapping on the helm and dived into the ocean. They had already planned that he would check out the twilight zone to see if there were any valuable resources.

  *Splash*

  ‘Huu…much better,’

  The heated seawater felt just nice on his scales. Without caring about any particular destination, Zyrus swam around the fleet to his heart's content.

  It was a pity that his joyful activity didn’t last for more than a couple of hours. Instead of finding any treasures, he encountered a school of hostile fish.

  ‘With that size, I might as well call them a school of sharks,’

  *Thunk*

  “Back already?”

  “Enemy ahead,” Zyrus spoke to Franken and relayed the same message to the command center. Encountering hostile fish wasn’t uncommon, but as they were approaching the border region, any bloodshed would mark the start of a tedious war.

  It wasn’t long before the players felt as if a tsunami was about to engulf the horizon. The reason why Zyrus used the word ‘war’ also became obvious.

  “Brace for impact!” Ria’s shout rang from the comms artifacts. But even with clairvoyance, she was a tad bit late. Knowing the future was useless without the needed reaction time.

  *Craash*

  The ships were forced a hundred feet back even before the enemy arrived. If not for the dragon of war that diffused most of the impact, quite a few ships would’ve sunk. The ones attacking them were no longer schools of fish that acted on pure instinct. It was a pre-planned assault launched by an army of fish-type monsters.

  “Not planning to help her?”

  “Let them learn.”

  Zyrus’s knights, rats, goblin riders, and the specter scorpions were on the dragon of war. The rats and scorpions were busy clearing the bugs since the start of the flag march. Theirs was an overlooked job, but it wasn’t like there were no rewards.

  All of the rats had grown to a meter in length. Their low starting point made it such that they’d experience a period of exponential evolution. Even though they weren’t able to increase their numbers due to system’s restrictions, their overall prowess went up by a notch.

  “Maintain the formation for now. At my signal, we’ll change into a ring formation.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Roger that.”

  Zyrus observed Ria’s actions and the approaching fish tide with calm eyes. His only job was to make sure that the dragon of war held out against the impact.

  ‘I don’t think I’d need to use summoning for that…’

  He believed that 400 Aydahar Cavaler along with the evolved rat and specter scorpions were enough for the job.

  And indeed, he was proven right shortly after.

  *Shlak*Shlak*Shlak*

  2000 rats dived below the dragon of war and started a massacre. After staying for so long near the ocean, they had learned to swim while holding their breath.

  Hundreds of spears rained down at the same time. Defensive formation, [Fear], and assassinations by specter scorpions made any organized attack on the ship impossible.

  *Squeeak*

  *Skeek*

  The three rat kings coordinated from the deck and used team tactics similar to the players. Three scavenger rats would act like tanks and deal with the fish’s offense. At the same time, four sawtooth rats would attack the same fish from all sides.

  *Swiiish*

  Burrow rats were like torpedoes as they made good use of their mobility and penetrative tails. Their hit-and-run tactic left no room for the fish to mount a proper charge.

  *ROOOOOAR*

  “Damn, here comes a big one,” Franken turned the helm at 180 degrees and pointed hundreds of frost cannons towards the front.

  A monster that looked like a baleen whale was charging straight towards the dragon of war. Worse, the 100-meter-long creature was leading a pack of dozens of smaller whales. The scene of these gigantic creatures swimming with their open maws was frightening to say the least.

  “Don’t just aim straight ahead. Disperse it.”

  “What’s the point? A few random attacks from frost cannons wouldn’t even freeze their skins,” Franken retorted but did as Zyrus told nonetheless. He was sure that if he asked another question, he’d be met with a disdainful look from his companion.

  *Splash*

  White globes brimming with cold mana froze the ocean, but in the next instance, the frozen patches were broken once again by the whale’s momentum.

  *Roooar*

  “Heh, looks like they’re mocking us.”

  “No wonder they’re trapped here despite their natural advantage,” Zyrus muttered but didn’t add anything further.

  The frost cannons were lackluster in the ocean because salted water had higher resistance against freezing.

  ‘But it also meant that it's possible to keep the seawater in liquid state at subzero temperatures,’

  Forget about the whales, even the majority of players didn’t know how to take advantage of that. 5km…4km…2km…the distance between two sides kept getting smaller. For a whale of this size, a kilometer was the same as being a dozen steps away.

  “Launch the torpedoes, all of them.”

  The entire ocean was lit up as hundreds of torpedoes pierced through the blue waters. Before the blue flash of their launch vanished, a much brighter explosion of electric arcs illuminated the ocean.

  “What the-” Franken lost his hoof on the helm as he stared at the hellscape ahead. All of the whales were shredded into mincemeat. The process was so fast that they didn’t even have the chance to let out a dying scream.

  The blood-red ocean was dead quiet. All that remained were chunks of flesh and crystalline spikes gleaming under the sunlight.

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