Samuel, much more sober, came out of the captain's room, and several hurried crew members nodded to each other, and trotted to the lower deck, where the bombardment of the fortress of Hawa was about to begin, and they had to get into combat positions as soon as possible to replace their comrades who had been in their positions all night.

Samuel was much more laid-back, and he even found time to sleep for six hours. He walked unhurriedly down the bridge, even stopping to look down at the ground below through the porthole. Samuel was on the 23rd Fleet's flagship floating battleship, the Kokang, which was at the moment in the air at an altitude of about 1,500 meters. Through the porthole, you can see the town in the distance, and the faint light of fire and smoke within it—-- the result of the previous shelling. Samuel felt the sound of the furnace and the engine begin to grow louder, and he knew that the battleship was starting to enter combat speed. He knew he should get back to his position

Pushing open the door to the lower bridge, Samuel heard a cacophony inside, staff officers gathering to discuss something nervously, and a large number of communicators busy coordinating the other ships in the fleet. The Chief of Staff, Major General Gustav, and the Deputy Commander, Major General Lane, saw Samuel's arrival, nodded to him, and then gave a brief report on what had happened during Samuel's rest.

"2 hours earlier, Colonel Ferret had spotted several of Falaise's cruisers, and they did not dare to approach Ferret's 6th cruiser, and Ferret did not pursue them. Maj. Gen. Lane reported to Samuel.

The Falais deployed their 35th Floating Fleet in the waters near Hawah, which was once a huge fleet of slightly larger than the 23rd Fleet, equipped with a large number of large warships, these ships of the Falaise Empire were specially designed for fleet battles, they were thicker armored and more firepowerful than the ships of the same class equipped by the Kalin Empire, and they could often overwhelm the Karlin warships in fleet battles. It is a pity that the concept of a "global presence" air force did not penetrate into the hearts of the Falais people, whose warships blindly pursued combat performance while ignoring seaworthiness and self-sustainability. This flaw was not a big deal in the battles near the mainland of Falaise. But it was a fatal flaw in Hawa, a colony far from home. Combined with the poor supply and maintenance of the colonies, the floating battleships of the 35 Fleet lay in the air harbor for most of the year.

In contrast, Samuel's battleships only had a maintenance period of about 3 months a year, and the difference of these months meant that there were always some windows of the year when the 35 fleet had less available strength than the 23 fleet. Samuel did not use these windows to force the 35th Fleet to fight the 23rd Fleet, which would cause heavy losses to the 23rd Fleet, Samuel chose to use these windows to harass the 35th Fleet's fragile supply lines, making Farlays's overseas supply system, which was already far inferior to Carlin, even worse, and the failure of the 35th Fleet's escort operation caused heavy losses to his already large cruisers. The lack of all kinds of supplies, especially spare parts, kept the 35 fleet in the air port for longer and longer. To make matters worse, due to the lack of medicines, the 35th Fleet was crushed by dysentery in August, which was often referred to by colonial sailors as "Sickness Month", and nearly half of the crew lost their combat effectiveness and completely lost the ability to confront the 23rd Fleet.

Samuel seized this window and launched this campaign against the fortress of Hawa. Faced with the situation that the key fortress was attacked, all the 35th Fleet could do was to send a small number of warships to follow Samuel from afar, and it did not have the courage to fight Samuel at all.

Faced with a fleet that was already no longer a threat, Samuel did not intend to devote too much attention. Now his primary enemy was several large fortified guns in the Hawa fortress, which had suffered some losses from the shelling suffered last night, but the surviving part remained a great threat to the 23 fleet.

Samuel walked to the window of the bridge, took out his monoculars, and looked in the direction of the Hawa fortress. Due to the distance, he couldn't see too many details, but he could still see that the huge fortress batteries were slowly turning towards the 23rd fleet. And the battleships of the 23rd fleet were passing from the west side of the fortress in a neat battle line, and more than a hundred large-caliber guns of the twelve battleships had already adjusted their firing angles, just waiting to enter the firing range of the main guns.

Rear Admiral Ryan stared nervously at the arcane sandbox on the command podium, where twelve small phantoms showed the real-time positions of the battleships of the 23rd fleet. The 23 fleet had 2 minutes left to go into firing positions.

At this time, several bright spots suddenly flashed in the direction of the Hawa fortress, and the Falais army fired the first shot of this battle. The fortress guns of Hawa Fortress far outperformed the naval guns of the 23rd Fleet, which allowed it to shoot longer than the condescending naval guns, even when fired from the back.

Several points of light flew at high speed from the Hawa fortress towards the 23 fleet, and one of them flew less than 5 meters from the bow of the lead ship "Courage" on the battle line, scaring the captain into a cold sweat. At the same time, on the "Kokang", which was in the middle of the battle line, a loud crash was heard.

Samuel screamed in his heart that he knew that his ship had been shot. After a while, the communication crystal on the command podium lit up.

"Shot in the ammunition compartment, it was a dud"

Hearing the voice from the crystal, Samuel and Gustav looked at each other, and Samuel could clearly see the fear in each other's eyes. If this shell was not a dud, the two would have been killed at the moment.

However, Samuel's expression quickly changed from fear to shock when he saw Gustav, and then to fear. Then he heard a loud explosion behind him. Samuel turned his head and through the window at the front of the bridge, he saw a huge tongue of fire erupting from the Duke of Delevingne in front of the Kokang, followed by a second explosion. The huge hull of the Duke of Draven twisted and deformed in the explosion and then broke apart. Its stern detached from its hull and shattered into several pieces, one of which was heading towards the Kokang, which was behind it.

"Left full rudder !!", Samuel, who saw this scene, immediately ordered to evade.

In fact, the helmsman reacted faster than Samuel, and had already begun to turn before Samuel could speak, but it was still too late. Huge wreckage rolled in the air and landed on the right front of the bridge. Samuel was knocked to the ground by the force of the impact at the first moment, and he didn't see what followed, but the sound of metal twisting and glass shattering in his ears showed that the situation was anything but optimistic.

Suddenly, Samuel felt a strong air current, he suddenly turned around, and found that a huge breach had appeared on the right side of the bridge, and worse, due to the strong damage to the structure, the structure of the lower bridge had begun to deform, Samuel felt that the ground began to tilt, and Samuel, who lacked a gripper, quickly slid towards the huge gap.

In a panic, Samuel grabbed a wooden plank on the floor, and finally stopped, Samuel saw that an unlucky crew member could not find any point of focus, and scratched the ground with both hands in despair, but still could not prevent himself from sliding to death, and he soon fell out of the breach, falling from 1500 meters in the air to the ground. A terrified Samuel heard a crisp thud, and then he realized that a deep crack had appeared in the plank he was holding onto, which then broke open under Samuel's horrified gaze. Samuel, who had lost his focus, slid down quickly.

"It's over"

Samuel had only one thought in his mind.

Suddenly, Samuel felt something hit him in the back, and while grinning in pain, Samuel felt himself finally stop. Samuel turned his head to see that there was nothing beneath him, only a faint ripple where his body touched.

"Force Wall Technique", Samuel immediately reacted.

He turned around, and sure enough, he saw Major General Gustav holding his staff aloft, and an esoteric rune was reproducing at the top of the staff.

Gustav nodded to Samuel and began to cast the second spell. This is a high-level windproof barrier that prevents air from entering the bridge through the breach. As the spell was completed, the raging air currents in the lower bridge also stopped.

Samuel crawled from the breach to a safe place, and he lay on the ground and gasped violently for a while before he looked up. The figures in the bridge were already half gone, and they had all fallen out of the breach, with no hope of survival, and some of the remaining people were already lying motionless, the ground around them covered in blood.

On the command podium, which had not yet been completely damaged, the communication crystal lit up.

"Whew...... Under...... Call the lower bridge...... We heard a loud crash....... please report your situation ..... call ....."

Major General Ryan, who crawled out of nowhere, picked up the communication crystal

"Here ......" Blood flowed from Major General Lane's forehead, and he suddenly felt a wave of dizziness, which took him a few seconds to recover, and continued:

"This is the lower bridge, we have been hit by the wreckage of the 'Duke of Draven', the bridge structure has been severely damaged, we are now ready to move to the upper bridge"

"Send in paramedics and damage management personnel," added Samuel, who had made a great effort to climb up. His hands were already cut, and he was still trembling slightly. But looking at those who had been cut on their necks by metal shards and glass, Samuel felt very lucky

At this moment, the 23rd Fleet did not know that its own command team had almost been wiped out just now, they only knew the tragic end of the "Duke Draven", but it was not the first time that the captains of the battle-tested ships had seen such a scene. At this moment, the 23rd Fleet has entered the firing position, and the main guns of the hideous battleship are ready to avenge all the officers and men of the "Duke of Delevingne".

"Fire!"

The captain of the "Courage" gave the first order to shoot, followed by the other captains, and the dense sound of cannon resounded throughout the fleet. The dense dots of light cut through an arc and fell towards the Hawa Fortress, where all the fortress cannons were still reloaded, and now it was the turn of the Falais to experience the wrath of modern magic technology.

The base of the turret was hit by two shells, and the busy loaders heard a loud bang, and then the whole world began to tilt. The more fortunate soldier was right in the center of the shell explosion, and in an instant he was blown into meat sauce, half of his intestines flew to the face of his companion in the distance, and the undigested breakfast flowed down the opponent's neck and into the inside of his clothes...... However, the soldier himself who was killed did not feel any pain and passed away instantly. The unlucky ones were far from the center of the explosion – but not far enough to save their lives. Fragments of metal sliced through their bodies in an instant, cutting them to pieces—but not to the point of instant death. They wriggled their bodies on the ground and wailed, their mouths uttering meaningless syllables. After such mortal wounds, these soldiers are no longer saved, but they have to experience extreme pain for a while before they die.

"Two batteries have been destroyed, and there are still six," Samuel said to himself, holding his monocular. As a high-ranking officer, he enjoyed the best medical treatment, and the military healers directly used spells to heal the wounds on his hands, while ordinary soldiers could only receive routine cleaning-suturing-bandaging treatment.

I have to say that the results of the first round of shelling were very good, with the current artillery aiming technology, it can be said that it is the favor of the goddess luck to be able to have such a hit at this distance, although the opponent hit the Delevin and the Kokang in one round of fire is also considered shit luck.

Soon, Lady Luck proved her elusive character with her actions, after which the 23 fleet carried out 5 rounds of artillery bombardment, without destroying any turrets, and the Hawa fortress side carried out 2 rounds of fire, which destroyed another battleship

After the sixth round of shelling, there was a sudden calm on the battlefield. It's a terrifying calm. Loaders on both sides are working hard to get their side ready for the next round of shelling, even if it's just a few seconds early, which could make a huge difference in the course of the battle.

"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, ......" The gunner of Battery 3 on the bottom side of the Courage stared at the fortress battery in the sight, talking to himself nervously, he saw the fortress cannon slowly turning, aiming the hideous muzzle at the Spirit, he was very sure that the opposing gunner was also staring at him in the sight, once reloaded, the Grim Reaper's scythe was likely to follow. The fortress battery broke through the Duke of Draven's spell shield with a single shot, and then smashed the giant ship to pieces, and the Courage, as a ship of its class, was unlikely to resist a single shot.

Finally, when the gunner saw the signal from his colleague that he had "reloaded", he immediately opened fire, having already adjusted the firing parameters, and at that moment, he saw a flash of light from the muzzle of the fortress battery in the sight. A small highlight came straight to me. He watched as the tiny dot of light grew larger and larger, and then appeared in the center of his sight's crosshair. The gunner felt his heart skip a beat, he had never felt that death was so close to him, but he had no choice but to accept his fate.

And then nothing happened, no loud noises, no fires of explosions, no strong impacts...... Nothing. The gunner immediately realized what was happening: the shell grazed his own battery and almost hit it...... But after all, it still didn't hit. He immediately looked at his sights, just in time to see the scene where the shell he fired hit the opponent's turret. A single cannonball could not penetrate the turret's magically reinforced armor, but the turret had been hit by several shells before, and the armor was already scarred, and his cannonball hit a broken part of the armor. The turret soon caught fire, followed by a spectacular explosion that lifted the top of the turret straight into the air.

"Destroy three turrets, three remaining!", Gustav shouted with some excitement. The battle has changed from 12 battleships against 8 turrets at the beginning to 10 battleships against 3 turrets now, and the 23 fleet has seen the dawn of victory.

The next few rounds of shelling were not so lucky, and the 23rd fleet carried out another 12 shelling before clearing all the remaining 3 turrets, but fortunately, the shelling after the fortress guns never hit any more battleships.

With the loss of all heavy fortress guns, the Hawa fortress could no longer pose a threat to the battlefleet at high altitudes. Samuel ordered the entry of the cruiser formations cruising around the perimeter, whose guns could not penetrate the protection of the turrets of the heavy fortresses, so they were not eligible to join the battle before, and now that the heavy fortress guns no longer existed, they could begin to clear the remaining small and medium-sized artillery and fortifications in preparation for the army offensive.

Most of the defenders of the Hawa fortress survived hours of shelling in the fortifications and managed to survive until now. But their good fortune is also coming to an end. The 20,000 Karlin soldiers, who had already completed their landing, began to attack the breach in the wall. Hundreds of griffon knights swooped down from the battleship, carrying small alchemy bombs such as incendiary and fragmentation bombs to bombard the Hawa defenders with precision.

The defenders of Falaise, having lost the vast majority of their heavy equipment, did not surrender. The four remaining infantry regiments quickly made their way to the breach in the wall to intercept the Karlins who were trying to enter the city, and hundreds of gargoyles immediately took to the air to intercept the swooping griffin knights. Some of the concealed turrets were not damaged by the shelling of the battlefleet, and at this moment they also began to fire at the cruisers that were firing at close range.

Falaise's musketeers stood on the remnants of the wall, relying on the battlements to fire condescendingly at the Carlin soldiers who tried to enter the city through the gap created by the collapsed wall, while their Carlin counterparts were forced to return fire with rifles without any cover.

However, the Karlins had a huge numerical advantage, and after arranging for their men to suppress the musketeers on the wall, they still drew a large number of troops to attack the gap in the wall. Soon a squadron burst into the gap. They were greeted by dozens of soldiers in heavy black armor with gray manes on their heavy helmets. The squadron commander instantly recognized the identity of the other party - the Greymane Iron Guard, one of the most fearsome hoplites on the battlefield. He immediately ordered the squadron to retreat outside the city, but unfortunately it was still too late.

The gray-maned guards crouched slightly, and the small magic furnace they carried behind them glowed brightly due to the high speed of operation, and then they jumped forward, and actually crossed a distance of more than ten meters, and fell into the formation of the Carlin infantry squadron. The Karlins dispersed in disarray, but one of the recruits was still unresponsive and was trampled under him by a Greymane Iron Guard who had fallen to the ground. The combat weight of the Greymane Iron Guard was already more than 200 kilograms, and it landed from the air at high speed, directly stepping on the recruit's head and deforming, and the huge pressure generated by the squeezing caused his right eyeball to fly out of his skull, rolling on the ground for several meters before being trampled into flesh by another Graymane Iron Guard. The good fortune of the Carlin soldiers who escaped the fatal leap ended here. These gray-maned guards raised their two-handed war hammers and smashed them into the ground, and their fighting spirit was injected into the ground along the war hammers, with them as the center, the masonry road within 5 meters cracked, and the violent shaking of the ground made the Karlin soldiers standing on them instantly lose their balance and fall to the ground. The battle instantly turned into a game of whack-a-mole for the Greymane Guards, with the only difference being that the gophers could still hide in their holes, while the Karlins had no way to hide.

The squadron leader, who was also smashed to the ground, watched his subordinates be smashed to the ground, and just as he was about to get up and escape, he saw a gray-maned iron guard walking towards him. Shrouded in great fear, he instinctively screamed, but the gray-maned guard remained unmoved, and mechanically raised the hammer...... Then he was knocked to the ground by a huge metal fist. The punch shattered most of his bones, and he lay on his back on the ground, his body convulsing instinctively. The metal fist seemed to be unfinished, and the raised fist was another punch. The punch flattened the graymane guard by three points—the heavy armor was only slightly deformed, and the people inside had been reduced to scarlet floc......

Seeing that the gray-maned guard was already motionless, the metal fist slowly retracted, as if it was a little unfinished. At this time, the squadron leader, who had already peed his pants in fright, saw it in its entirety. It was an iron giant with a height of more than five meters, and the squadron leader who had been in the army for many years immediately recognized its identity - the "Executioner" type battle golem, the main heavy combat structure of the Carlin Army.

Now it's the Greymane's turn to experience what it's like to be tortured and killed.

Hoplites such as the Greymane Iron Guard once held the throne of the king of melee infantry for half a century, and even an ordinary soldier, after half a year of training, with the help of heavy armor and the small magic furnace that came with it, could easily rival a full-ranking knight or wizard, the latter two often meant nearly a decade of rigorous training.

Unfortunately, about thirty years ago, the popularity of heavy combat structures drove hoplites from their thrones, and the former was about an order of magnitude superior in strength and protection to heavy infantry.

The Greymane Guards, who had the upper hand just a moment ago, soon found themselves unable to withstand even a blow from the Executioner-6 with their proud full-body armor, and their full force could only leave a shallow pit in the Iron Giants' outfits. The Fallaise musketeers in the rear tried to support the desperate Greymane Guards, but their bullets did not pose any threat to the golems other than sending clusters of sparks into their foreheads.

By the time the Greymane Guards had been slaughtered, several squadrons of the Kalins had broken through the breaches in the walls. The commander of Falais had given the order to retreat to the Doge's Palace a few minutes earlier, to prevent the soldiers on the walls from being divided and wiped out by the Kalins. The retreat of the Phales was very rapid, and the rest of the troops, except for a small number of troops in the rear, quickly broke away from contact with the Karlins.

The loss of the walls worries the Falaise soldiers. This apprehension continued until they discovered an anomaly in the sky. Dense black dots were catapulting from Carlin's cruiser and falling precisely inside the fortress, more precisely, on the way of the retreating Falaise soldiers.

These unidentified objects fall from high altitudes at high speed, only to begin to slow down slowly as they approach the ground. It was only then that Falaise finally saw what these objects looked like. These were boxy metal boxes, and after they hit the ground again, there was a mechanical sound coming from inside. After about ten seconds, the four walls of the box slowly unfolded, revealing the object inside—a "girl" curled up on the ground, as if asleep. After the box was unfolded, the "maidens" slowly woke up, stretched out their curled limbs, six metallic bladed feet slowly unfolded, and their two arms slowly raised. The two long knives fixed to the arms shimmered in the warm sunlight.

The people of Falaise finally realized what these "maiden" homes were. It was a medium-sized combat structure, known to the Carlins as the "Iron Nun", similar in size to a grown man, and far less effective than the Executioner-6 that pursued them closely. But...... The number of these combat structures is in the hundreds.

The heavy footsteps of the "executioner" could be heard faintly in the rear, and the dense iron nun in front of him slowly walked with her blades and feet, and despair began to spread among the soldiers of Falaise.