Chapter 393 - The Hard Way 1

When Quinn arrived at the beach, he noticed that their soldiers were already engaging the enemy soldiers. Due to the unexpectedness of the attack, the Goldenia soldiers were losing ground against the enemy.

He quickly rushed in to provide back up. He tossed a few throwing knives at the enemy soldiers and directly plunged into their frontline.

Quinn weaved in and out of the soldiers and every soldier he passed by fell to the ground while grasping onto their necks. When the enemy soldier saw their comrades falling one by one, they quickly turned their attention on to Quinn.

"Mages, fire at that soldier! Take him down before he kills any more of our—"

The captain who had been roaring orders near the backline was suddenly cut off when a dagger plunged through his skull, directly killing him on the spot. His body toppled over and his men could stare in horror at the mess that their captain's head had become.

Quinn didn't stop his attacks and continued to systematically kill every soldier in front of him. The mages regained their wits and immediately tried to target him, however, since Quinn was among their allied soldiers, it was hard to strike him without worry of accidentally attacking an ally.

The Goldenia soldiers who saw this followed after Quinn's lead and began striking back at the enemy. They pierced through the enemy's weak spots that Quinn had created due to him killing their soldiers and pushed into the enemy's rearguard.

However, just before they could reach the enemy mages, Quinn distinctively heard the cannons on the enemy sh.i.p.s firing. When he turned to look at the sh.i.p.s, he noticed that a few of their cannons were targeted in their direction. He quickly roared out to stop his allies but it was too late.

"STOP—"

The beach was suddenly struck by numerous artillery fire and the Goldenia soldiers that had recklessly charged towards the enemy's rearguard were blasted apart. There were also a few from the enemy side that was caught in the attack and were killed. However, this didn't stop any of the enemy soldiers from landing on the beach and continuing to charge at them.

It was like they didn't care at all about their lives and were instead more focused on their mission to take over the harbor.

"Shit, they're using their cannons? They're not even afraid of hitting their own people!" Quinn said with a scowl as he saw both his friendlies and enemies being decimated by the enemy sh.i.p.s' attacks.

It was a good thing that their ally mages quickly took action and began conjuring magic barriers on the beach to try and block the cannonballs that were fired at them.

Seeing as they were creating Earth Barriers, Quinn quickly moved to the back and gave the captain of the squadron he was helping an order.

"Tell your mages to conjure Water Barriers! Use your head captain and remember our plan! We're by the water so what else better to form a large barrier other than that?!"

"Y-you're right, sir. Ah, the plan—"

"Once you've conjured the water barrier, freeze it to form an Ice Barrier! Even though we were caught off guard, remember to stay calm and stick to the plan!" Quinn ordered.

"Y-yes, sir! Right away, sir!"

The captain quickly gave out new orders to their mages and they immediately began adjusting their magic.

"Claustrum—Aqua! Mutare—Glacias!"

"Claustrum—Aqua! Mutare—Glacias!"

"Claustrum—Aqua! Mutare—Glacias!"

The multiple mages in their squadron quickly chanted out the incantation and the waters along the beach began rising in the air before quickly freezing over, forming a thick wall of ice that separated the sea from the beach.

Once the wall of ice was created, the captain immediately issued out an order to charge towards the enemy since the enemy soldier on the beach was cut off from their reinforcements that were constantly coming from the sea.

He only left a few of the mages to maintain the barrier while he sent the others to attack the enemy encampment that was hastily constructed on the shore.

When the other allied soldiers in different areas around the beach and harbor saw the large wall of ice suddenly appear, they immediately remembered their original plan and the captains ordered the mages to start freezing the waters and creating a wall of ice to obstruct the enemy soldiers and sh.i.p.s from landing.

Freezing the waters around the bay and forming a thick wall of ice to block the enemy fleet from getting too close to the harbor was their original plan anyway. It should have worked greatly to their advantage if they weren't attacked so suddenly.

It was unfortunate for the Earthlings, but their magic spells would dissipate rather quickly if no mages were supplying the spell with mana so it was impossible to set up the ice from the start without it immediately melting back into water soon after. Even if they did anticipate the attack tonight, having their mages constantly on standby at the harbor and beach just to conjure the barrier was rather impossible in this weather.

Quinn finally recognized the convenience that his family's young madam brought to the board with her overpowered magic spells. Freezing the entirety of the waters in the bay was child's play for her, not to mention she could keep it frozen for an indefinite amount of time.

He didn't complain though, because all of this wasn't even his family's business in any way. He, for one, didn't like dragging his family's Lord and Madams into danger.

After seeing that things on the beach were taken care of, Quinn was just about to go support another area but after feeling that something was off, he turned to look at the Storm Howlers and frowned when he noticed that they were still inactive.

"Shouldn't the cannon teams already be at their stations by now? What's keeping them?"

Quinn was just about to go back to Katya and see what was holding the cannon squadrons up, but he suddenly saw something break through the ice barrier in the middle of the harbor. One of the enemy's juggernaut sh.i.p.s had rammed into the ice barrier protecting the harbor and broke it apart.

Enemy soldiers began roping down from the ship's bow and descending onto the harbor. The allied soldiers from the nearby areas noticed this and had sent some men to support their allies defending the harbor since they only needed a few soldiers and mages to maintain the barrier and keep out anyone who tries to ambush them.

Quinn clicked his tongue when he saw more and more soldiers flooding in through this opening. The only good thing about this was that it was currently contained and not spread out. The allied soldiers could keep the enemy troops contained within the harbor since the other enemy sh.i.p.s couldn't do this on the beaches because they would run aground even before they got close to the ice wall.

Quinn wanted to go help, but finding out the problem with their cannon squads was more important. Without the Storm Howlers being operated, they were bound to lose this war.

He was able to quickly find Katya near the frontlines at the harbor directing their troops.

"Katya, why are you at the front?"

"Huh, Quinn?"

"Why're you here?"

"Well, everywhere else has been contained so I thought it'd be better if I led our troops from the frontline. It was a good thing that our soldiers still remembered our initial plan. Now we can keep them contained at the harbor and hopefully, push them back," Katya quickly said.

"Okay, but why aren't our cannons firing? We can't possibly push them back without them," Quinn immediately questioned.

"I-I'm not sure... I sent them ahead a while ago and I even tried to call them through the comms device but they didn't answer—"

It was at that moment that the cannons on the Goldfire City walls suddenly shot out a Mana Missile straight at the enemy ship that had punctured their ice wall.

The juggernaut ship that had broken through the ice wall was now up in flames and the front area of the ship was badly damaged. A lot of the enemy troops had died during the initial shot. The others were smart enough to not directly descend from the front, but the sides of the ship instead. After which they immediately rushed forward to engage the allied soldiers at the front.

Unlike the Faustus Archduchy that was heartless enough to fire at their own troops, the Goldenia soldiers didn't do that. Instead, the cannon squadrons manning the Storm Howlers in the city began directing their fire at the enemy sh.i.p.s farther away from the ice barrier.

Katya was relieved to see the cannons start firing and immediately said, "That took them long enough, but at least they're firing now."

Quinn frowned and said, "A little too long. I'll go check up on the other squads' status. It shouldn't have taken them so long to get back to their posts and begin firing the cannons."

Katya nodded and asked, "Alright, do you need to bring some men with you?"

"I'll be fine on my own, but do send some men over just in case. I have a feeling that the enemy might've somehow sneaked up around us and ambushed the cannon teams."

"..." Katya grimaced silently when she heard this. Things were supposed to be easy after they had acquired the Storm Howler Cannons from Silvaria but instead, it only turned even more complicated since there was a high chance that there was a traitor in their midst.

"Be a little more discrete if you need to issue some special orders..." Quinn quietly reminded.

"Alright..."

"Remember to keep me updated on the situation and watch your back."

Quinn turned around and hurriedly made his way to the cliffs where the other Storm Howler Cannons were located at. When he got there, he was immediately confronted by a small group of people.

"Is this the backup that they sent? Just a single person?"

"Heh. Well, we were able to take out the other cannon teams, too bad we can't do anything about the ones in the city."

"We did what we could. Good thing we got intel on the placements of these things. Man, they sure pack a punch. Just one attack from these beauties nearly crippled one of our Juggernauts. Were these weapons really developed by that one kingdom that the Nightingale team failed to attack some time ago?"

"Hmph, they failed because they were incompetent. If the Young Lord had sent us instead, we would have easily completed the job."

"Let's quickly take care of this guy. We still have to rescue the young master anyway. Remember, that's our priority goal. These people are just a bonus."

Quinn was just silently watching the group as they rambled amongst themselves. He had already judged their strengths and although they were individually fairly powerful, and most likely worked well together as a group, he didn't pay them any mind since they weren't as strong as him.

He looked around and noticed some bodies piled up on the side. Quinn quickly identified the bodies as the men and women who were placed in the cannon teams that were assigned to the Storm Howlers that was just beyond his current location.

"You guys killed them?" Quinn flatly asked.

"Hm?"

"Heh, check this guy out."

"Yeah, we killed them, got a problem?"

Before the enemy could even register what happened, they all collapsed onto the ground, except for the last person who had spoken to Quinn.

"I do have a problem. And you're going to provide me with some answers," Quinn said from behind the man.

When the person noticed that all of his comrades had suddenly collapsed onto the ground with their necks bleeding, he pulled out his weapon, an axe, and swung it at Quinn. In the next instant, however, the man's axe suddenly fell to the ground...along with the arm he was holding it with.

"GAAHHHH!!!"

Quinn eyed the man coldly before asking, "Who brought you here? I'll only ask you nicely just this once. If you're going to be difficult I'll just force it out of you instead..."

"Nnggh, gahhh, f.u.c.k you!" The man who was squirming in pain on the ground glared up at Quinn and tried to spit on him.

Quinn saw this and immediately shoved his foot into the guy's face.

"Hm, it looks like you prefer the hard way," the butler said as he took out his daggers.