Chapter 359: Heavenly Carnage
Sunny rolled over his shoulder, and just as he did, countless arrows hit the deck in the spot where he had been just a split second ago. Sent from powerful bows made for Awakened archers, each carried enough force to pierce plate armor with ease. Of course, the Undying Chain was not just any armor...
And yet, Sunny was extremely apprehensive of the threat posed by archers. Being battered by a rain of arrows was going to take a toll on his body, and all it took was for one to slide into the slit of his visor... not to mention that there were all kinds of Aspects the enemy could possess, and all kinds of runes the bows and the arrows could be enchanted with.
The heavy javelins sent flying by the bolt throwers came next...
Streaking through the air with terrifying speed, they hit the ship like missiles. Each possessed enough momentum to tear a hole in the deck, sending an explosion of splinters into the air. Sunny was not sure if he would be able to survive being hit by something like that, so he took no risks, diving into the shadows and turning into one of them.
The wisest move right now would have been to step onto the deck of a different ship... however, only the two attacking vessels were close enough to not require a truly vast expenditure of Essence to perform a jump, and their crews were undoubtedly already prepared to resist an assault.
Plus, Sunny was reluctant to leave without killing the remaining soldiers and destroying the ship completely. He had a very good reason for that.
While the gargoyles and the four boarding parties were harassing the formation and slowly whittling down the number of enemy vessels... the fleet’s main target still remained the same.
All of them were attacking the graceful ship with a beautiful tree growing around its mast, surrounding it like a murder of hungry crows.
As Sunny rushed through the shadows toward the stern, he caught a glimpse of the graceful ship as it dove down, the figures of Sailor Dolls bracing themselves against rails and releasing the strings of their powerful bows. There were deep scratches on its hull and holes in its sails, dozens of arrows sticking out of the deck like needles... but it was still in one piece.
Emerging from the shadows at the stern, Sunny used the second or two it took the enemy archers to notice him and take aim again to push one of the steering oars all the way up, wedge the Prowling Thorn into the wood, and then secure the handle of the oar in place with the invisible string attached to the heavy kunai.
The ship shuddered, and then its bow turned down, sending it into a downward dive. Sunny made it just in time — not a moment after he finished the task, a heavy arrow hit him in the back, sending a jolt of pain and a concussive shock running through his body.
He was roughly thrown forward and hit the deck, which was slowly turning into a vertical wall. Sunny allowed himself to slide down, dodging a few more arrows that way, and saw the remaining soldiers falling into the night sky with terrified screams.
A feral grin appeared on his face.
’Done!’
It was time for him to abandon the ship, as well...
By pure conscience, at that very moment, the falling vessel happened to be at the same altitude as the descending ship that Dan Heng controlled. Pushing himself off the deck to dive into the shadows, Sunny noticed the massive siege engine on the bow of the sorcerer’s ship take aim at an enemy boat. It seemed as if another enemy was going to be destroyed in a second...
Sunny frowned, feeling a strange premonition.
’What...’
Before he could finish the thought...
The vessel he was still standing on suddenly exploded into debris as something massive tore through it at a stunning speed and then streaked through the lightless sky, exploding into a show of incandescent lights as it made contact with Dan Heng’s ship.
It was only a second later, when Sunny found himself falling down with nothing there to support his weight anymore, that he registered what the thing was.
...It was a narrow pillar of polished steel, at least fifty meters in length, that ended in a sharp point. That pillar, it looked like... like...
Like a javelin worthy of a giant.
And that javelin was somehow deflected by a barrier formed of colorful mist that surrounded the ship. It ricocheted into another ship, this one belonging to the Ivory City. Unfortunately, said ship did not have a barrier to protect it.
The javelin seemed to be simultaneously on fire, frozen, and decaying. Sunny guessed that it was a consequence of hitting the strange barrier.
Stunned, Sunny turned his head and looked in the direction of the Ivory City as he fell.
His eyes widened.
He did not like what he saw.
...He did not like it at all.