"Whoosh!"
The golden spear surged forth like true light itself, as though distance meant nothing to it. By the time those present became aware of it, it had already struck the hull of the Black King.
In an instant, the entire ocean was flooded with golden light. Clean, pure, and so dazzling it stung the eyes of anyone who looked directly at it.
Silas, who was possessing Lieutenant Philip, instinctively closed his eyes as well, and so he too saw nothing.
"Damn it..."
Silas cursed silently.
Had this Sequence 3 gone mad, coming out with such a violent strike right from the start?
He didn't look like he intended to capture the Black King at all. Rather, it seemed as though he meant to obliterate it completely!
The light held its grand display for a few seconds before slowly fading, and people were able to open their eyes again to look at the center of the battlefield.
What was surprising was that the Black King remained entirely intact.
"Sizzle..."
Holy golden flames danced across the sea's surface, gathering around the Black King at their center.
This pitch black three masted sailing ship showed no obvious damage. The remnants of the solar holy fire had curled into a semicircle around the stern, as though blocked by something unseen, unable to strike the hull itself.
Indeed, someone had blocked that strike.
"This is..."
Following Philip's line of sight, Silas noticed with astonishment that upon the Black King, empty and desolate as the legendary ghost ship it resembled, a figure was quietly emerging.
She stood at the stern, extending a pale, delicate hand, and with that alone had easily blocked the grand spear of light unleashed by Bishop Pierre.
She was a tall, statuesque woman with long black hair cascading over her shoulders, crimson eyes, and skin as white as snow. Her brows and eyes carried a commanding air, striking with both pride and majesty.
She wore a black gown from some ancient era, lined in vivid crimson.
Its cut was distinctive: one half trailed to the floor, while the other reached only to the knee, revealing a long, shapely leg. And on the upper half, the black dress showed the same stark contrast: one sleeve loose and flowing, the other clinging tight to her arm.
This garment, so full of dissonance, somehow suited the woman perfectly, as though every contradiction and every chaos it contained were entirely within her command, producing a beauty that took one's breath away.
That was unmistakably the fashion of the Fourth Epoch, as though history itself had rushed past her while her beauty alone remained unchanged, frozen in place.
The woman in the black dress withdrew her hand in silence. The flames burned across the sea's surface, their golden light reflected in her eyes, radiant as rubies.
Those eyes slowly lifted.
The entire sea suddenly fell into an eerie silence.
Everyone turned to look at the woman, as though she were the center of the world, as though the moment she had just raised her gaze, she was in truth looking at each of them individually.
This silence was soon broken by the woman herself.
"Clink, clink..."
The woman took slow steps toward the railing of the Black King, the sound of clashing chains following her every movement.
Silas looked closely and saw that the woman was barefoot, and around her pale, delicate ankles were bound two black chains each, identical in form to the chains wrapped around the Black King itself!
With every step she took, the chains rang out. She walked with visible difficulty, as though those chains were restraining her movements.
"Creak..."
At last, she made her way to the railing.
There, a black cannon slowly turned to adjust its aim, its muzzle settling on the flagship at the center of the enemy fleet.
The cannon looked rather ordinary, without much destructive power to speak of.
Its might could not compare to the alchemical cannons aboard the Intis flagship, nor could its caliber match the various weapons mounted on the escort warships.
And yet the naval forces across the water immediately grew wary.
For this was the only cannon aboard the Black King, and that fact alone was enough to demand their full attention!
Under the watchful eyes of the Intis fleet, the black haired, crimson eyed woman raised her arm.
Black chains flickered faintly into view, coiled around her body. She furrowed her striking brows slightly, as though enduring some kind of pain.
A terrifying spirituality rose steadily within her, and the surface of the water began to tremble. Centered on the black three masted sailing ship, ripples spread outward, layer upon layer, expanding further and further.
In that moment, the presence of the woman in the black dress completely overwhelmed that of Bishop Pierre across the water!
"Impossible!"
Silas's heart was struck with utter shock.
He had felt a presence like this only once before, from another being: the Duke of Southville of the Loen royal family, Dlink Augustus, that damned Sequence 2 Beyonder of the Loen royal house!
Could this mysterious being aboard the Black King truly be an Angel?
Just as his thoughts churned in turmoil, the woman in the black dress finally overcame the chains entangling her body and pressed her hand firmly against the cannon.
"Boom!"
An instant later, light flashed at the muzzle, and a heavy cannonball was launched at once, flying toward the Intis ironclad.
Its surface bore no glimmer of spirituality whatsoever. It truly was nothing more than an entirely ordinary solid shot.
The Intis fleet had unleashed countless projectiles upon the Black King, while the Black King answered with but a single, simple shot.
At the center of the opposing fleet, Pierre, clad in his white robe, showed a look of astonishment.
For the moment that cannonball left the muzzle, it underwent an enormous transformation!
Even as it flew, it kept accelerating, and in an instant reached an almost unbelievable speed, as though it were no longer a solid projectile at all, but a streak of black light.
No sooner had the cannon's roar sounded than it had already appeared at the bow of the steam ironclad!
Along its path, the air itself was torn apart, and sound could not keep pace with it.
Not only that, its speed kept climbing further still.
Some unseen rule seemed to be acting upon it: rather than slowing from the friction of the air, it instead accelerated again and again, gathering energy over and over, until at last it became something monstrous, almost beyond description!
The path of "Law", "Exploit", "Amplify."
This was, at the very least, power on the level of a Sequence 4 Demigod!
"Praise the sun!"
Jean Pierre cried out loudly. He raised both hands high, offering once more the most devout prayer to the lord of his faith.
Under this prayer, his body swiftly grew translucent and radiant, and in the end transformed completely into light.
"Whoosh!"
This light, pure gold, surged forward like a tide, forming a divine suit of armor at the bow of the ship, carrying a holy aura and solidifying into a sturdy protection.
The Sequence 3 ability, "Holy Equipment"!
Just an instant after he activated this power, the cannonball fired from the Black King arrived.
It was no longer a cannonball at all.
In the course of its extreme acceleration, it had long since disintegrated, transforming into a flowing mass of black light, and with tremendous energy, it struck the armor Bishop Pierre had constructed.
And then, the sound vanished, and the light vanished as well.
Silas found it hard to put into words what he felt in that moment. When that cannonball had been fired, it was as though the entire world had trembled along with it.
In the next instant, he saw the energy the cannonball had become spread outward along the golden armor, sweeping across the entire sea's surface in the blink of an eye, and surging toward the surrounding ships!