The current was strong, but with the help of her Spirit and Martial Qi, Allina cut through the waves like a fish, rapidly closing in on the smuggler’s ship.
Just over a minute-and-a-half after she had jumped into the water, Allina reached the vessel, and with the help of a pair of sharp daggers she always kept on her as backup weapons, she managed to scale its side and leap up onto the deck.
The instant she landed, she took a combat stance, fully expecting to meet with a desperate resistance from the madmen who had set their own ship on fire, but all she was greeted by was silence.
Heat from the flames brushed against Allina as she swept her Soul Sense around, only to discover that there was no longer anyone alive onboard this ship.
Frowning deeply, she proceeded quickly but cautiously to the vessel’s hold, smashing through the doors and descending into the ship’s belly.
Allina had anticipated many possible scenarios, but the one she found was far more gruesome than she had expected.
30 or so rowers were chained in place, their throats slit, looks of horror still adorning their faces.
The brutality of this scene, accompanied by the smell of burning flesh nearly caused Allina to gag, despite having a stomach forged in blood and war.
Still, she could not afford to be distracted here. The fires were burning rapidly, and it wouldn’t be long before the ship broke apart and sank.
Hurrying forward, Allina did her best to search for whatever cargo the ship had been carrying, but even after breaking into every room she could find with her Soul Sense, she discovered nothing.
She also didn’t find any other members of the crew, all of them seemingly have vanished into thin air.
It was eerie and unnerving, causing Allina to wonder just what the hell was going on.
However, when the deck above her crashed down on top of her, battering against the Spirit Qi barrier she had erected around herself, Allina knew that time was up.
Not bothering to return topside, Allina simply smashed her way through one of the oarports, the structure of the ship having been weakened enough already from the fire and from her earlier Firestorm Arrow attack.
Leaping back out into the waters, Allina took a moment to orient herself, only to suddenly hear the sound of weapons clashing.
Turning her head, Allina was stunned, then enraged as she swam hard, making her way back to her ship.
.....
A couple minutes after Allina boarded the suspected smuggler’s vessel, the Raging River Legion warship pulled up to its starboard side and Spirit Lamps began scanning the waters, looking for anyone who may have tried to escape.
However, there was nothing to find.
No signs of life, not disturbances in the water, just... nothing.
Sasha and the rest of the crew were naturally confused by this.
The smuggler’s ship was on fire and sinking, so where was its crew?
Surely someone had to have been operating the ship, and even if they were mad enough to try to burn whatever they were carrying, while there was still a chance to escape, shouldn’t they have at least tried?
Unwilling to just give up, Sasha ordered everyone to pay even closer attention to the waters, bringing more and more soldiers and sailors over to sweep the surface again and again.
Everyone’s focus was on the port side of the ship, so no one even noticed when a dozen new shadows silently climbed up over the starboard gunwale.
These shadowy figures, wrapped in pitch-black cloaks, crept closer and closer to the unsuspecting sailors, each of them quietly drawing daggers as they prepared to strike.
One of them was even targeting Sasha, clearly identifying her as some kind of leader that needed to be dealt with in the first strike.
Just as the shadows were about to make their move, however, Tina and Eris emerged from the hold.
The two young girls had been stuck in the chaos down below, trying to make their way through the sailors, soldiers, and refugees. It had taken until now to push through the crowds and get to the deck, but the moment they did, they were horrified to find several black shadows approaching the unsuspecting crew from behind, knives in hand.
Noticing that her mother was one of the shadows’ targets, Eris did what anyone else would have done in that situation and screamed, "MOM! LOOK OUT!"
Whipping around at the sound of her daughter’s voice, Sasha instinctually lifted her spear to defender herself.
Sasha wasn’t in time to block the dagger strike entirely, but she did manage to throw her attacker’s aim off, shifting the attack just enough so that she only suffered a minor cut on to her arm.
Several others also managed to respond in time, saving themselves from this sneak attack, but 4 crewmembers were still pierced through the neck and crumpled to the deck, dead.
Having been exposed, the shadows no longer bothered trying to be stealthy and pounced forward, swinging their daggers wildly, trying to bring down as many people as possible.
With no time to care about her near brush with death, Sasha shouted at the top of her lungs, "ENEMY ATTACK!"
Ignoring the throbbing pain in her left arm, Sasha stomped forward and thrust out her spear, trying to impale one of the shadowy attackers.
Unfortunately, these shadows were both strong and skilled, and having caught the warship’s crew by surprise, they managed to gain an initial advantage.
It took a few seconds for the crew of the warship to recover, but once they did, they pressed these shadowy attackers hard, stabbing at them from multiple directions, using their superior numbers to the fullest extent possible.
What shocked the soldiers from the Raging River Legion, however, was how fearless these shadows were.
At first, everyone onboard thought they were assassins, but after clashing with them for some time, they realized that wasn’t the case.
Although these attackers didn’t give off any kind of aura, likely because of the special cloaks they were wearing, they all seemed to have raw strength equivalent to that of a Core Formation Realm expert.
More disturbing was that even when their arms were chopped off by a sword, or they were stabbed through the leg with a spear, these cloaked warriors kept swinging their blades wildly, lashing out at anyone and everyone around them.
These people were like mindless drones that felt neither pain nor fear.
This kind of madness made these shadows quite difficult to deal with and many among the ship’s crew who were fighting even felt a tinge of fear, wondering just who, or what they were dealing with.
Nevertheless, the soldiers trained by General Balfour were all elites in their own right, so they swiftly steeled themselves and fought back even harder, coordinating with one another to corner these assailants, looking to capture them rather than kill them outright.
That proved to be impossible, though, as these shadows simply refused to surrender.
About a minute after the initial clash, one of the Raging River Legion Captains had no choice but to deal a killing blow.
*BOOM!~*
3 seconds after the Captain sliced off the enemy attacker’s head, before the body even had time to slump to the ship’s deck, something inside the latter’s body exploded, sending flesh and blood flying everywhere.
Cries of pain rang out immediately from the surrounding soldiers who were again caught off-guard, many of them being thrown away or even impaled by bits of shrapnel made from the enemy’s armour and bones.
The sudden and completely unexpected explosion caused the rest of the soldiers to freeze momentarily, hesitation appearing in their movements.
"Push them into the water!" Allina, who had finally returned, shouted to rally her shaken subordinates.
While issuing this order, Allina dashed into the melee, grabbed one of the shadowy attackers by the throat, snapped his neck, and threw him overboard in one smooth motion.
Just as expected, the body of the attacker exploded as it hit the river, sending a small column of water shooting up into the sky.
With their Peak-Rank Spirit Initiate Commander back aboard, the soldiers of the Raging River Legion no longer had anything to fear and coordinated with one another to drive the enemy back.
Once a cloaked enemy had been pinned to the gunwale, one of the stronger soldiers would deliver the killing blow while also shoving the body overboard.
No one, not even Allina, thought about taking any prisoners anymore; the risk was simply too great.
Less than half-a-minute after Allina’s return, half the shadowy attackers had been disposed of, and if nothing unexpected happened, the rest would follow shortly.
But in a night where so many unexpected twists and turns had occurred, it seemed the mysterious enemy they were facing had one last unpleasant surprise for them.
Probably realizing their mission had failed, the 6 remaining attackers let loose a final burst of strength, pushing the swarming Raging River Legion soldiers back just enough to lift their daggers up high.
Seeing this, Allina had a bad premonition and hurriedly yelled, "Defend yourselves!"
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