Well, I guess that I was more distracted by the thought logger than expected. The accelerating ship is consuming a massive amount of mana. Mana that I should have been tracking. (I should have known about this at least half a minute ago.)
Even now, the ship is thundering towards us. The thing reminds me of a ghost ship with how dilapidated it looks. The other two ships still keep their distance. Right now, it is more advantageous for them to do so. After all, they can decide what to do based on how I react to the first ship.
The first thing I do is reduce the range of my sensory formation. Even now, I can feel the pressure formed in my head due to this dissipate a bit. I might have done some damage to my soul processing this much information. (Let's just say that I am going to get quite a few headaches from this in a few days.)
The ship is presently twenty kilometres away, by the way. It has begun to slow down. I am a bit disappointed about that. If it had kept the same speed, it would have shot past us. That would have given me a few more options to deal with it. Now, I have only one option.
That is why I begin aiming the hook. It is a tricky task. If I fail at this, that will give them more chances to throw hooks at me. The more hooks they attach, the more enemies we will eventually need to deal with. They have already reached about fifteen kilometres from us in the time it took to record this, by the way.
I begin aiming my shot, as the other party does the same. It is not easy. After all, a hook has a very small range. They are also pretty slow, which means I need to hit them based on where they are going to be, not where they are. I finally release my hook, feeling the sweat get into my eyes. I don't even blink as the hook sails through the sky.
Fucking hells, it has hit the target. This excitement is replaced by a shiver that runs down my spine. It should have already exploded. I was counting on the panic of them losing their environment formation to prevent getting hooked. It is very hard to aim when you are swelling up like a balloon, I think. Even now, I focus on my sensory formation, looki....
My head is buzzing like somebody is using it as a bell. I work through it, as I get up. Now is not the time to be distracted. I link up to the sensory formation again, feeling a wave of heat. I can feel my flesh roasting even as I work through the pain. (I am not actually on fire. The sensory formation is.) It takes me a moment to look through the heat. The enemy ship has popped like a balloon. It takes me a moment to work out what happened.
The idiots were using a fire element propulsion formation. Such a propulsion formation grants a decent amount of speed but so much fire mana in a single place is always risky. There are formations meant to siphon off this excess fire mana. They have clearly failed. My hook acted like a trigger, destabilising the excess fire mana and that caused the explosion.
Fuck, this was not supposed to be happening. I begin to send more mana into my propulsion formation. It is a massive risk, but remaining in this minefield of burning debris is a greater risk. The fires must have already starting spreading to my ship. The first thing that the burning debris has started to burn is the sensory formation. Even now, I can feel myself lose connection to many parts of the ship. All I can do is pick a direction and hope that it will get me out of the debris without too much damage.
I can't say for certain, but none of the other ships seem to be coming closer. If they were accelerating into this minefield, I would call them idiots. I am barely surviving the inferno as it is. Their ships would be burnt to ash. (However useless my ship is, theirs are worse.) Thankfully the ship is presently in a hundred different pieces, being kept in the air by the excess fire mana. Otherwise, a single piece would have already sunk to the ground. (I don't even want to imagine the damage this single piece would have done to us.)
Right now, the burning debris is not too much of a threat. The fires will take a while to do any lasting damage. the more immediate threat are the boarders. If they reach the formation room, then the best case scenario is the fire crashing us to the ground. At least that way we will have a quick death. I try to see which part of my ships have been hooked. Well, there is no luck with that. The sensory formation is too damaged. I am unable to sense many parts of my ship now.
If enough of them have gotten onto the ship, then I will need to get involved. I guess that I can leave the formation room for a bit. Right now, the enemy certainly won't be accelerating. There is no use of doing that with this burning minefield of wreckage. If they were to take a roundabout turn to dodge the wreckage, then it would take them even longer to get closer to me.
By my estimates, that should buy me half an hour, at least. This is the worst case assumption by the way. After all, they have just seen me destroy one of their ships like it was nothing. (At such a distance, they wouldn't even sense the hooks.) That should have scared them. Right now, I am hoping that it will be enough to scare them away completely. (Somehow, I don't think that is likely.) That is why the boarders are the more immediate threat.
(After about a couple minutes.)
I guess I should explain who the people chasing after us are (or at least who we think they are.) After all, it is not the first time we have been attacked. We have been hounded by these "pirates" ever since we entered into the territory of the Snowwind Empire. Now they are not actually pirates. (Though the ships are that of a pirate. Only they would have such shitty ships.) The Empire is bloodthirsty enough that no real pirate would dare to enter here.
Whoever they are have been attacking us on and off over the last couple of weeks. All of the ships they have used to attack us are like the ships that are behind us, shitty enough to be sent to a scrapyard. They chase after me from a very safe distance, forcing me to keep using my propulsion formation. Whenever I try to slow the ship down, they try to board us. They have been pretty successful at that too. That particular formation can fail at any moment now. I am not thinking about it because I don't know what I will do if it does fail.
Anyway, their goal till now has been to harass us and delay our progress. Today it is different, though. Today's attack is too violent. For one thing, I have never been chased by three ships. They also were not willing to waste so many mana stones before to get close to me. (They certainly spent mana stones before, but never as freely as today.) On top of that, all three ships behind us are packed to its brim with people.
I am sure that there are at least fifty people in each ship. The enemy has never brought so many people with them to battle. It is neither cheap nor convenient to feed so many people especially in this barren wasteland. (A town capable producing that many supplies is at least a week away.) They have planned for a fight today. A pretty big fight.
They have certainly accounted for my soldiers. I don't know how many enemies actually made it to the ship, but the number should be enough to overwhelm them. The enemy wouldn't be so gutsy unless they were that confident. Now don't get me wrong, my soldiers are a part of the Sworn. They are certainly as trained as I am in terms of fighting, but they have never actually been on a battlefield.
If it was just a stronger enemy, I still wouldn't care. My soldiers would be able to fight against any single person easily. Against a large group of weaker enemies, training is not the most helpful thing. (If anything it tends to make things worse for you.) That is why it is the best that I replace them today. I will be more ready for any tricks of the enemy. I am also significantly more durable than them. (Let's just say that I heal quickly.)
By the way, Trevor has been sharing his suspicion about who the people attacking us could be. You see, he believes that this a welcome provided to us by a noble family of the Snowwind Empire. The nobles of the Snowwind Empire are very big believers of destroying their enemy. Their first response to any provocation is to usually attack the enemy.
Now, they aren't supposed to attack us. That would break enough treaties to spell disaster for their little Empire. Even then, these people could be tempted into attacking you. As long as they don't get caught. They could do so by capturing (or buying) a bunch of pirate ships. If they are caught, they can just put all of the blame on these pirates. It is not like we will find sale records of a pirate ship now.
At the moment, Trevor might even have an idea on which exact family is attacking us, though the man is not willing to share it with me. He believes that it will colour my judgement too much if I were to know.
I am presently making my way to the heart of our little ship. It is a fancy little name that I have given to a room in the middle of the ship. This room is connected to every other room in this ship.
Regardless of where the enemy has breached the ship from, they will have to come to this room to get to the formation room. At the moment, that can be their only aim. Our ship has literally nothing else that would be of interest to them. Getting to the formation room means that they control the ship. (They have not breached anywhere near the formation room. I would certainly have felt that.)
That means that this room is the best room to hold back the enemy. (It also helps that it is the largest room in the ship.) That is why both Jacob and Andrew are here. They are the two soldiers that I have been given command over. (It is a long story of why there are only two of them.) I normally wouldn't have been too worried about them. They both have a stronger cultivation than me and a training that can match mine. (Kind of.)
Today is the one exception to that. Even now, I can see the little flaws in their present plan. For example, the two of them are standing in the heart, boarding up a door. Now, boarding up the door is not a bad thing in itself. It means that they are buying some time against the enemy. The problem is that this is a defensive action. They are trying to hold against the enemy for as long as possible, where they should be attacking the enemy.
Against a large group of enemies, the more time you let them attack you, the more advantageous it is for them. The quicker you get rid of people, the easier the fight gets. That is why I have come to replace them today.
"Jacob, describe the situation to me," I command the both of them. They had noticed me but were keeping quiet.
"Yes, my lord. We have confirmed that the enemy is presently in the storerooms. They are still recovering from their trip," Jacob speaks. "That is why we are boarding up the door. We plan to use this room as a chokepoint to keep them back."
Of the two, Jacob is the more level headed. He is maybe a couple years older than me, with the ghost of a beard already appearing on his face. The man uses a sword and a shield, which will not really work in this closed place. (He also has the strongest cultivation in our tiny group at the fourth foundation stage.) He can protect himself, but he won't be able to attack much. I can see why their plan was so defensive in nature.
"The both of you, retreat to the formation room," I command them. "Find Trevor and make sure that the formation room is secure."
"But, captain," replies Andrew.
Andrew is closer to my age, (I would say that he is at most an year older than me.) He is also the problem child of our tiny troop. (He needs to prove himself, you see.) He is at the third foundation stage. (Which is the average for our age.) He uses a couple of daggers, which would be very effective in this tiny place. That is why he is so attached with this fight. He believes he will be able to show off the most here.
"Can you confirm if there are more boarders in the other parts of the ship?" I ask the two of them.
"No, we can't," Andrew replies.
"Then go and reinforce the formation room," I growl at them. "Unless you want to lose the ship so that you can prove your strength."
Now the sworn are loyal. They won't go against my command without reason. Still I can see that Andrew is trying to find some way of convincing me to let him remain. The thing is that he can't find anything. It takes a glare from Jacob to finally get the man moving.
The both of them do not say anything as they leave the room, leaving the enemy to me.