Jellitt had been uneasy from the beginning of the meeting, a little unease that had ended at the end of the pre-war meeting two days earlier, but which had become more and more intense as time passed. It was so strong that he couldn't even sleep tonight. The battle group arrived at the intended ambush site about half a day earlier, and according to Samuel's predictions, the 31st fleet would arrive within 2 hours.

Jellett felt that his mood was a little complicated, and he somewhat hoped that the 31st Fleet would not show up, even if it meant that the Hawa battle group missed the target, even if it meant that the interception mission was a complete failure, and even though it meant that his military career would be unpleasant..... but it was still acceptable. Gerlett still hoped that Samuel had misjudged, and he still preferred to believe that the commander he despised was just an incompetent straw bale, and then ended up court-martial for his foolish plans.

It was close to 6 a.m., and Jerlett, who hadn't closed his eyes all night, looked at the clock every few minutes, expecting the two hours to pass quickly.

Also missing his eyes all night was the lookout of the "Alert". With a telescope in hand, he stared warily into the distance. The telescopes blessed with night vision made him virtually unaffected by the darkness, but the fog still severely hindered his vision. The time for the changing of the guard had come, and he couldn't help but relax a little, he put away his binoculars and rubbed his deeply tired eyes. Rogers, who was supposed to replace him, still didn't come, presumably oversleeping again. He couldn't help but curse bad luck, but he still decided to fulfill his duty as a lookout. He picked up the telescope again and looked into the distance, but this look made him sleepy. In the churning mist, he saw dense black shadows. The changing of the guard had been completely put behind him, and he quickly sounded the alarm, and then yelled at the teleportation crystal, "Enemy shadow found!"

Samuel's report was a relief to Samuel. He had taken a great risk for this ambush, and although he had a lot of information to back up his judgment, it was very indirect and vague, and his entire plan was based on a few key assumptions, some of which were not true, and he was likely to miss the 31st Fleet, a mistake that could easily take him to court-martial.

To make matters worse, he clearly felt that he might not have had any good intentions in assigning this task to him, and he could see from Jellett's performance that Carlin was probably staring at him with many pairs of eyes at the moment, paying attention to every mistake he made.

Fortunately, it turned out that he was right, and now the 31st Fleet is head-on with Samuel's main force, which is 1.3 times his number, and the staff officers can easily calculate that Samuel's actual strength has reached 1.69 times that of the 31st Fleet, which means a great advantage.

In addition, Samuel found that his good fortune did not stop there, at this moment Samuel's fleet was heading from east to west, and the 31st fleet collided with him head-on from north to south in a not very regular formation, forming a T-shaped prefix that was extremely beneficial to Samuel. Even better, Samuel was now in a downwind position, blocking the escape route of the 31st Fleet downwind. Both Carlin and Falais's ships are hybrid, allowing them to use the internal power of the Mana Furnace and the external wind power of the Force Field Sails. Carlin's ships have a higher percentage of internal power, so they have a higher headwind speed than the Falaise ships. If the 31st fleet intended to turn to escape against the wind, it would simply not be possible to get rid of Samuel's fleet at their speed.

Kolbomac was also in a very bad mood at the moment, this time the mission came in an unusually hurry, when he received the military order, his 31st fleet had just completed the task of escorting the "Anvil" fleet, and many warships were damaged, so they docked at Lorne Harbor north of the Gray Leaf Forest for repairs. After receiving the task, he could only give up the repair and immediately set off for the military port of Würdik. He had planned to go to Port Ricester for a simple resupply, but soon found that if he made a detour to Port Rancester, the fleet would have to travel at an average speed of 32 knots to feel the Vundik on time, and it would be too much wear and tear to sail at such a high speed for a long time, so he decided to divert to Cold Wind City, which meant that he no longer needed to make a detour to the west after passing through this storm gap, and the distance was greatly reduced. The only trouble was that Cold Wind was a bit close to Carlin's defense zone, which made him a little worried about encountering Carlin's fleet in Cold Wind City. But such worries are unnecessary. He had barely left the storm gap when he loaded the 23rd Fleet, which was in full swing.

With the fog obstructing the view, when Kolbomac spotted Samuel, he was already within range of the opposing artillery, and to make matters worse, the opposing battleships were more numerous than him. Instinctively, he wanted to mobilize the cruisers cruising nearby, use the fog to cover the approaching battle lines, and then use the large-caliber short guns characteristic of the Farlaise cruiser to support his own battlefleet. It is a pity that several cruiser detachments reported that they had been stopped by Carlin's cruiser and could not get out for a short time. His expression was cloudy, and finally he took out the communication crystal and gave the order to turn the battle.

The so-called combat slalom. It means that the stern ship of the fleet is the first to start turning 180 degrees, and the battleship in front of it immediately starts the same maneuver when it sees that the battleship behind it is starting to turn. Until the lead ship of the battle line also completed the turn and became a rearguard ship. This is a very risky order, and the power and steering performance of different ships in the fleet are very different, and in the current technological age, there is a lack of an efficient and reliable coordination mechanism to help each ship find its own path of maneuver. So combat maneuvers often lead to formation collapse and chaos. What's more, at this time, the 31st Fleet was already within the range of the Hawa battle group, and falling into chaos meant a crushing defeat, and worse, in order to better avoid the magic turbulence that appeared from time to time, the formation of the 31st Fleet was not regular. Make it even more difficult to regroup

Samuel was a little surprised when he saw the 31st Fleet's turnaround, the order for a combat turn did not necessarily lead to confusion, but the probability of chaos was high overall. Samuel could not believe that Kolbomac, who was known for his steadiness, would take such a radical response.

As Samuel had predicted, the 31st Fleet had only completed half of its combat turnaround maneuvers, and there was already a precursor to chaos, with several battleships almost colliding due to lack of coordination. Samuel was not going to let go of this opportunity, and he was ready to order the fleets to follow the lead ship to turn to the right and bite the bow of the 31st Fleet—once the turn was complete, it would turn into a tail. The 31st Fleet, which was anxious to disengage, could hardly support its own attacked tail, so Samuel could create a situation of more strikes and fewer strikes in a local area.

"Reportedly, Jellitt led the rearguard fleet out of the battle line. ”

"What?!" Samuel was taken aback

He looked at the magic sandbox, where the marker representing the 26th Fleet was leaving the battle line and heading north.

Samuel could not bear the anger in his chest, connected the communication with the 26th Fleet, and shouted:

"Jellett!What the hell are you trying to do?!"

"The enemy fleet has fallen into disarray, and we are at the tail of the battle line and cannot effectively exert our firepower, so it is the right choice to adopt detachment tactics and get close to the enemy fleet as soon as possible," Jellett replied with a hint of dissatisfaction, he thought that Samuel's tactics were too conservative.

But the actual reason is that Jellett is not willing to act as Samuel's foil. Samuel successfully judged the 31st Fleet's route and intercepted it, and the royal family's plan to take down Samuel through this operation was in vain. But Jerlett still had to think of himself. It is true that the emperor favors Jerit, but Jerlett is not the only heir, he must accumulate as much military merit as possible before the time of succession to the throne and use every opportunity to show his ability in order to improve his final chances of victory. Samuel recorded Jerlett's plan in the minutes of the meeting, which now only proves Jellett's incompetence after the operation. But all this is not irreparable, as long as you get enough credit for this battle, you can offset the mistakes in strategic judgment to a certain extent.

But acting as a rearguard for Samuel's fleet was definitely not a good way to gain military merit, so he would lead the fleet out of the battle line under the pretext of detachment tactics.

Samuel had just wanted to order the 26th Fleet to return to the battle line, but Jerrett had already cut off the communication. Samuel slammed his fist on the podium, and the staff officers around him were taken aback. But Samuel quickly calmed down and looked back at the magic sandbox. Samuel put the 26th Fleet at the tail of the battle line as a rearguard fleet, and now after his rearguard fleet left the battle line without permission, it would be difficult for the ships in front to support it, unless Samuel also made a combat turn, but this was equivalent to putting the entire battle group in danger for the sake of the 26th Fleet.

"The whole fleet, follow the lead ship to turn right and bite the other party's tail." Samuel took a deep breath and gave the order he had wanted to give a long time ago. He looked at the mark representing the 31st Fleet in the magic sand table, and had a faint bad premonition.

Kolbomak was also startled when he saw the 26th Fleet turning. He knew that the other party was trying to take advantage of his own chaos to shoot at close range. After half a minute of contemplation, Kolbomac's eyes lit up and he realized that this might be an opportunity. He quickly came to the magic sandbox, and used the tools on the sandbox to start calculating and drawing, and if Samuel was here, he would have been shocked by his speed of drawing, which was several times faster than that of a normal commander. Soon, Kolbomac calculated a trajectory for each of his ships and sent it to one of the ships, asking them to start executing it in one minute.

And from Samuel's point of view, the actions of the 31st fleet began to look somewhat strange. The ships in the fleet suddenly changed their previous mode of action, and began to turn in a way that Samuel did not quite understand, if the previous warships were like a swarm of panicked flies, now they are more like a group of puppets with strings, constantly making all kinds of stiff movements.

Stiff, but effective.

After the initial confusion, the formation of the 31st Fleet began to slowly become regular. At this time, a battle line that ran across the entire 31st Fleet had been faintly formed, this battle line went from south to north, turned southeast in the center, and then pointed due east, forming a T-shaped prefix for the 26th Fleet.

Samuel felt the sweat start to run down his forehead. According to his original plan, the entire battle group bit the tail of the 31st Fleet in a battle line, forming a small T-shape, just as the long snake is difficult to take care of the tail, it is difficult for the other side to form an effective support for the tail of the battleship. Although this kind of attack may cause some enemy ships to flee to the north, it can effectively preserve his own strength, not to mention that the task he received was originally to delay the opponent's southward movement, rather than completely annihilate the opponent. Eating half of the opponent's ships and forcing them back to the north is already overfulfilling.

However, due to Jerlett's unauthorized actions and sending the 26th Fleet to the encirclement of the opposing side, the Hawa battle group and the 31st Fleet are now evenly matched: the 23rd Fleet, commanded by Samuel, is ravaging the tail of the opposing side, and the 26th Fleet is being ravaged by the other side. Although the tail of the 31st Fleet could not hold out for long, the 5 ships of the 26th Fleet were also in danger under the siege of 8 warships of the 31st Fleet, not to mention that the other side still occupied a favorable position.

The starboard guns of the eight Falaise battleships surrounding the 26th Fleet suddenly opened fire, and nearly a hundred small points of light flew towards the 26th Fleet, while the counterattack of the 26th Fleet was much weaker: only the two battleships at the head of the squadron rushed to the side fire.

A large number of cannonballs flew through the 26th Fleet, and only 5 shells hit the target, and they were bounced off by the magic shield of the 26th Fleet's lead ship without causing any damage to the hull structure, but at the cost, the magic shield became noticeably darker after bounce off these shells.

No matter how conceited Jellett was, he had to admit that the decision to break away from the battle line and get close to the enemy was a huge mistake, but at this time it was too late to regret it, and he began to order the 26th fleet to turn eastward, trying to get out of the T-shaped unfavorable position and sail parallel to the opponent. In the case of the 31st fleet guards being bitten by Samuel, the 26th fleet had great hopes of holding out to the end.

Unfortunately, not everyone makes it to the end. After 3 rounds of salvos, Jellit lost his pilot ship, the giant ship lost its spell shield in the last round of shooting, and it lost its barrier by 6 shells fired in this round, two of which hit the battleship's magic furnace, and the buoyancy engine that lost its magic power supply stopped, and the battleship lost all its buoyancy and fell to the ground, and some of the wizards who accompanied the ship began to jump ship and slowly landed to the ground by relying on the slow fall technique, but most of the crew without spell casting ability could only meet death. Jellitt began to feel anxious, the 26th Fleet had lost a fifth of its strength before it could turn around, and his counterattack had not even been able to penetrate the spell shields of any enemy ships.

Also anxious was the commander of the 31st Fleet, Kolbomac. He felt that he was too slow to destroy the enemy. No sooner had he destroyed the first battleship of the 26th Fleet than he received a report that the Iron Duke, the second-to-last position of his battle line, had its spell shield penetrated, turrets 4 and 7 had been destroyed, and one of its two engines had been lost. And the "Marquis of Lothar", which was at the end of the battle line, had been destroyed by the 23rd Fleet a few minutes earlier.

Time was running out for him, and he had no doubt about the fighting power of the 23rd Fleet, a division of a hundred battles, and if he hoped or saw the sunrise tomorrow, he must annihilate the disadvantaged 26th Fleet before his rear guard was completely routed.

"Turn the rudder 15 degrees to the right, give up shooting at the enemy's No. 2 ship, and fire at its No. 3 ship. ”

The No. 3 ship is a "sea power-class" battleship, and only the flagship "Oath" of the 26th Fleet belongs to the "sea power class", and the rest of the battleships belong to the "flag class", and it is not difficult to see that the No. 3 ship is the flagship of the other party, and furthermore, since there is only one sea power-class battleship in the entire region, Kolbomac even knows whose ship this battleship is. Due to the distance and angle problems, firing at the enemy's No. 2 ship at this time would have achieved better shooting results, but Colbomac had no time, so he had to gamble, hoping to sink the enemy's flagship and then turn to disengage. While this did not change the 31st Fleet's disadvantage, for Kolbomac, the killing of Prince Carlin could make up for the failure of the operation.

At this moment, in the bridge of the "Earl Dunk", after seeing that the enemy "Iron Duke" was incapacitated, Samuel gave the same order:

"Turn the rudder 15 degrees to the right, abandon firing at target No. 3 and concentrate fire on target No. 4"

This No. 4 target is none other than Kolbomak's flagship "Prince Augus".

Both the 23 and 31 fleets had to re-do the firing calculations due to the sudden change of firing targets, and suddenly, the battlefield was quiet, and only the battleships of the 26 flotilla were still firing sporadically. This silence did not last long and was broken by the sound of a salvo of the main guns of the 31 fleet.

Samuel, who saw the other party's shooting target, couldn't help but greet the whole Kolbomac family. The loss of the flagship of the 26 fleet was not too much of a problem for the entire battle group, but for Samuel personally, if Jellit was killed under his command, he could not predict what kind of anger His Majesty would be.

The 31st Fleet's salvo was quite good, with 7 shells hitting Jerlett's ship, and although it was bounced off by the spell shield, the spell shield also dimmed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the devil knows how long it could last. Jellett couldn't care about any face at this time, and asked Samuel for help with a hint of fear.

Samuel immediately scolded Jellett in the correspondence and hung up the correspondence. But Samuel, who vented his anger, found that he had no good way but to urge the ships to complete the shooting calculation as soon as possible.

Luckily, he didn't have to wait long, and a dozen seconds later, the wrath of the Karlins descended on Kolcomak's flagship. When the Carlines had just stopped firing, Kolbomac had a bad premonition, and now this premonition has finally been fulfilled.

"Spell Shield Strength reduced to 60%!"

"Spell shield strength reduced to 45%!"

"The shield won't last long!"

....................................................

"Commander, we can't hold out for long, please transfer to the Count Ruan in front!"

The staff officers knew very well that after a maximum of 2 volleys, the spell shield of this battleship would be penetrated, and a battleship without a shield would only be able to withstand a maximum of 1-2 salvos by relying on armor alone. As is customary, the fleet commander and command team should begin the transfer at this time.

Kolbomac rejected the offer to transfer, and if he could quickly destroy the flagship of the 26th Fleet, he was sure to save 50% of his strength and break away, and he would have a chance to retain his position by killing Prince Carlin. But if it fails to destroy the opponent's flagship...... He is still sure that he will retain at least 50% of his strength and secede, but he is likely to be sent directly to a military court as soon as he lands.

At this critical juncture of the battle, changing the flagship meant a temporary weakening of control of the battle situation, and Kolbomac could not afford to take that risk.

The commander refused to evacuate, and the other members of the command team naturally could not be transferred, and the huge pressure brought by the Grim Reaper made them all red-eyed, and roared angrily urging the ships to complete the main gun loading as soon as possible. Fight to take out the flagship of the 26th Fleet before it is blown up by Carlin's shells.

By the time Kolbomac righteously refused to evacuate, Jellit had already boarded the floating boat for evacuation, and the No. 5 ship of the 26th Fleet Battleline was withdrawn. The dinghy had barely gone a few hundred meters when the rumbling sound of cannon was heard. A new salvo of the 31st Fleet arrived as scheduled.

Jellett is also considered to be a long-time soldier, and he has seen such scenes many times. But he had never felt such great fear as he did today. Overwhelming highlights flew from the 31 fleet. There is no magic shield in the air, and there is no heavy armor of a Seapower-class battleship, even if it is just rubbed by any point of light, the ship will be destroyed and killed. Facing the dense dots of light, Jellit felt like an infantry on an ancient battlefield facing a curtain of arrows flying from above, any arrow could kill him, and he had nothing in his hand to stop them.

The bright spot was instantaneous, with two points of light flying less than 5 meters from the dinghy...... But in the end, I didn't touch the dinghy. As soon as Jellett breathed a sigh of relief, he heard a loud crash and a terrifying sound of metal twisting. The spell shield of the "Oath" was pierced at some point, and two cannonballs passed through the spell shield and smashed into the battleship's equipment, and the heavy armor did not block the cannonballs, and the cannonballs penetrated through and exploded inside.

With the size of the Oath, two shots are not a particularly big problem, but this time the situation is different, because the place where one of the shells exploded was the ammunition bay!

A large amount of ammunition accumulated in the ammunition bay was exploded, and then a series of explosions were triggered, and hundreds of large-caliber shells exploded inside, deforming the entire battleship, and from Jellett's point of view, the "Oath" looked like it had been twisted. The force of this twist was so great that the heavy armor was twisted out of the cracks. Tongues of terrifying fire poured out from the rift, gaining momentum. Immediately after that, the second round of explosions began. The hull, which had already been badly damaged, could no longer hold on, and was blown into countless pieces by the explosion.

The dinghy was lucky enough to avoid all the large pieces of wreckage, but there were still countless small fragments flying towards the dinghy. The chief of staff of the 26th fleet yelled for everyone to find cover, and he himself hid behind a large wooden box and did not dare to move. It was only after two minutes that the thud of the splinters finally stopped, and he poked his head out to confirm the safety of the others, especially His Highness Jerlett.

Soon, he saw who he was looking for. Despite such an accident, Jerlett was still well-groomed and dignified. Sadly, that graceful face is no longer there. A piece of iron struck him in the head, slicing off half of his head. At this time, only the lower half of his head hung from his neck, and the part above his eyes was lying quietly on the deck at this time, and his beautiful eyes still maintained their frightened expression.

The sinking of the "Oath" relieved Kolbomac, who immediately ordered the entire command team to move to the forward battleship. Just as the staff officers began to move in full swing, he heard cries of terror

"The spell shield is gone!"

Immediately after that, out of the corner of his eye, Kolbomac saw a bright spot flying towards the bridge, the last image he had ever seen in his life.

A few minutes later, Samuel received news of Jellett's death. The monocular in his hand fell to the ground with a thud, but Samuel was unaware, and he was even deaf to the news of the destruction of the Kolbomac.

With the removal of Kolbomac from the 31st Fleet along with the flagship, the 31st Fleet began to fall into disarray, defeat was assured, and the interception mission was overfulfilled.

The officers and soldiers at the grassroots level had already heard the footsteps of victory and began to rejoice that they had survived. Unfortunately, Samuel didn't feel any joy, and there was only one thought in his head:

"It's over!"