Half an hour later, the "Hegemony" hidden in the depths of the Valstad column finally appeared.

The super-battleship slowly sailed out of the column, flanked by an elite group of five heavy cruisers, which suddenly turned the rudder and launched a deadly assault on the central soft underbelly of the coalition fleet, which was unguarded.

The "Hegemony" sank an old coalition battleship with a ferocious starboard salvo, and quickly reloaded, severely damaging another coalition cruiser next to it with a second salvo.

A gap appeared in the coalition formation, and five heavy cruisers of Valstarapo took advantage of the weakness and rushed up to besiege the lone large Allied supply ship "Coconut Crab", quickly breaking its rudder, making it lose its ability to steer and become a floating target.

Before the coalition fleet could react, the "Hegemony" turned its rudder to the left and engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with the coalition battleship "Exocet" that rushed up.

The captain of the Exocet, Baron Homont Cannis, is an old Sylvinian nobleman and an experienced veteran of meritorious service.

It's a pity that his ship, the "Exocet", is an old warship that has been in service for more than ten years, and whether it is the tonnage, the advanced degree of artillery, or the training level of the crew, it is completely inferior to the Valstad giant ship "Hegemony" in front of him.

After two salvos, the main mast of the "Exocet" toppled over, the No. 2 ammunition depot was killed by a bullet, Captain Homont was blown up, and there were no corpses left, and only 20 of the more than 500 crew members survived.

Field Marshal Collingwood sensed the heavy blow in the middle of the Allied fleet, with the "Hegemony" wreaking havoc with five heavy cruisers, and new Valstad ships constantly coming to support, and hurriedly led his battleship "Templar" to the scene to direct the battle.

Collingwood knew very well that he had to reorganize the central front as soon as possible, otherwise the entire coalition fleet would be cut in two by the enemy and surrounded by the Valstadians.

The good news is that the fleet of the Knights of Crusided is fully engaged in battle, and the Varstads are now in a state of being on their backs, temporarily hindering their advance.

The Allied fleet was given a respite, but Field Marshal Collingwood was still not happy, as he found that the enemy was equipped with new weapons.

He noticed that the enemy army had not only a large number of giant warships, but also a number of light gunboats with sloops on decks.

Instead of attacking with the main force of the fleet, these pesky creatures roamed around the perimeter of the battle line, throwing all sorts of air-burst grenades at the coalition fleet from all directions.

In the old days, Collingwood didn't bother to deal with these guys, after all, there was no heavy cannon on the ship, and light cannons under 12 pounds were not a threat to the big ship at all, it was just tickling.

But now these ships are somewhat unusual, and their destructive power is quite staggering, and Collingwood's careful observation quickly uncovers the mystery.

It turned out that the Valstadians creatively converted the army's caliber howitzers into a model that could be carried by naval ships.

These howitzers were fixed to the center of gravity of the ship by means of a special gun mount, so that capsizing accidents caused by recoil could be avoided as much as possible.

The ship's cannon-fighting tactics paid off, and with the skillful operation of Valsta's elite gunners, grenades exploded above the coalition fleet.

Although far less destructive to ships than cannons, those shrapnel and incendiary grenades were killing and injuring coalition crews in large numbers, many of which were fine on their bodies, but the decks were already covered with corpses.

Field Marshal Collingwood's ship, the USS Templar, had been identified as a coalition command ship by a keen Valstad officer, and was soon subjected to concentrated howitzer fire, killing more than a dozen people by the resulting shrapnel shells, and continuing to be attacked would have dire consequences.

Fortunately for Collingwood, the storms of the Banshee Fjord saved the coalition forces.

Due to the proximity of the battlefield to the eye of the storm, the wind suddenly increased, and those pesky Varsta gunboats had a shallow draft and poor resistance to wind and waves, and were overturned by the sudden giant waves one after another, and the heavy howitzers still affected the center of gravity of the ship.

"It was so dangerous! Thank you, God of Storms! Field Marshal Collingwood kept making crosses, rejoicing in his good fortune.

He cast an awe-inspiring gaze into the gloomy airdrop, sensing that nature was on the side of the coalition.

But before he could rejoice, another threat was observed through the telescope eyepieces.

Not far away, on a Valstad corvette, several sailors were fiddling with a strange long cylindrical object with a conical top and four tail fins at the bottom, tied to a large bamboo pole and fastened to a special inverted V-shaped bracket.

Collingwood immediately recognized that it was called a rocket in Flandia, and it was an expensive fireworks for large celebrations, filled with alchemists' secret recipes, which could bloom in the night sky, but the scientists, it was just the chemical reaction of various metals burning.

One of the attendants beside him said, "Those Valstas are really stupid!" I even brought the fireworks rocket to the battleship, and I wanted to celebrate before the battle was over! ”

Collingwood shook his head:

"It's definitely not that simple, you look at the size of those rockets, they are at least six to ten meters long, and if they are filled with gunpowder, the power is absolutely incredible! It wasn't a fireworks for celebrations, it was a full-fledged weapon of killing, and fortunately, it looked like it was in the testing phase. ”

"Are you...... They used this as a testing ground? Damn it! What a madman, these bastards Valstayan! ”

"Look, they're turning the rocket, the gunner has lit the fuse, and—" At this point, Collingwood hurriedly warned the crew next to him: "Damn! They are aiming at our ship! Heart! ”

Contrary to all imagination, after the fuse burned out, the bottom of the rocket did not emit a stream of flames, but only black smoke kept emitting.

A Varsta gunner stepped forward to check the fuse's condition, when the rocket suddenly exploded, a mist of blood rose up, and the gunner's body was blown into three pieces, and the others next to him were also killed and wounded.

The attendant Gao Xin jumped up, waved his hat frantically, and laughed: "Haha, let you experiment with new weapons!" Blow yourself up! Deserve! ”

"The Valstadians have suffered a series of accidents, and it seems that the god of luck has decided to side with us today."

Field Marshal Collingwood smiled and turned his head and began to focus on more important matters,

From his telescope, he constantly observed the condition of several of the main ships of the Valstad Royal Fleet.

Suddenly, a situation caught his attention, several figures dressed in red appeared on the deck of the "Hegemony", the brightly colored uniform was the characteristic of the Valsta royal squire, Collingwood shouted excitedly:

"Great! I know! Empress Valsta is in command of the Overlord, which is the enemy's flagship! Absolutely, yes!

Flag Signal Soldier! Spread the word to the entire fleet! We've found our goal! ”