The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

            Before the enemies could fire their arrows, Zaos held his sword tightly and concentrated wind magic on the blade. At the same time the first arrow was fired, Zaos swung and sent the wave of wind toward the enemies. He didn't concentrate enough to make the wind cut them, but It repelled the arrows and also made the enemies fall.

              After that, Zaos and the others approached and then finished the enemies off. Zaos saw the catapult right in the middle of the ship, but he didn't see many oil barrels around. It seemed that Ferdinand considered that some of his men would lose their ships and decided to evenly spread the oil between many ships. That was quite odd since it would require him to have a huge number of catapults.

"Position the catapults and then attack the other pirate ships!" Erean said. "Zaos, go check if there is anyone hiding inside it."

              Zaos would instead try to attack another ship by himself. Still, in the end, he obeyed the order and ended up finding five pirates hiding. These people sure were disappointing… Regardless, when Zaos returned, he saw that Erean had used the remaining oil to put fire on two pirate ships. The battle had just started, but the entire area already looked far worse than anything Zaos had seen before… probably because dozens of ships were on fire.

"Captain, why don't we use this ship to approach the others?" Zaos asked. "Their decks are completely dark in order to make us wonder how much oil they have. I am sure they won't suspect anything if we look like we are running away."

"No… we can't get away that much from the princess," Erean said. "Instead of that, we will burn this one and make them head straight to the enemies."

                It seemed that Erean had planned that from the very beginning. Zaos didn't notice it, but a huge part of the ship was already soaked in oil. After putting a rope in the wheel of the ship, they put fire on the whole vehicle and then left. It was a real pity, but since it was a pirate ship, it was probably the best way one could use it.

"You took your time," Drannor said when Zaos returned. "Man, this is a scene that I will never forget."

              Zaos probably wouldn't forget it either. So many ships are burning around them…. weirdly enough, most of them were pirate ships. It seems that somehow, Ferdinand's plan backfired splendidly. Soon enough, Zaos realized how that happened. Suddenly Ameria fired a Fire Sword at one of those ships that were still completely dark. Despite that, she managed to hit the catapult at the center of the deck. Once that happened, the flames spread, hit the barrels around, and made everything explode. Even Zaos couldn't help but be amazed. After all, Ameria was hitting targets in the darkness while they were five hundred meters away. Not to mention, the ships were shaking due to the waves.

"Are you glad that I am here now, Captain?" Ameria asked.

"I will be glad, once I am hundred percent sure that my head will stay on my neck once we return," Erean said.

"Is it just me, or is someone here getting carried away?" Zaos asked.

"You sure like to say that," Ameria said.

"You can feel proud of her, Zaos, instead of making fun of her," Drannor said. "After all, you were the one who taught her magic."

"Nah, I am fine," Zaos said.

              Drannor sighed after that. Regardless, they didn't have time to talk since they were heading straight to the enemy fleet, and Ameria was planning to attack them from a distance again. When their ship hit the first pirate ship, a good part of the pirates fell on the ocean, Zaos ignored that, but he didn't ignore the oil falling. The very moment one of them emerged from the ocean, he hit it with a bolt enhanced with fire magic, and then it exploded, and the others in the vicinity exploded as well, causing a chain reaction that made the entire enemy ship burn. The pirates that got caught in the flames began to scream. Zaos hadn't noticed that until now… but it was pretty nasty to die that way. Being cut down by a massive sword seemed a lot more merciful. There wasn't much time to feel the pain, after all.

              Zaos decided to ignore those because he realized that Ameria had run out of mana. Without her, he will have to protect the ship with his long-ranged attacks. Fortunately, the darkness of the light will no longer be a problem since the sun was rising on the horizon. Even the first sunlight changed the flow of the battle more than anyone could have anticipated. After seeing the catapults firing the barrels so many times, Zaos knew their exact trajectory, so he could hit them right when they were flying above other pirate ships. That was quite an efficient way to use the enemy's weapons against the enemies.

          Thanks to the sunrise, the group had the chance to finally see the result of that battle. It only lasted for half an hour, but they had lost half of their fleet. As for the pirates, it was hard to say, but they had more or less forty ships on their side.

"40 against 20, huh…" Drannor furrowed his eyebrows. "Despite the odds, I have a good feeling about this."

            Once again, Drannor's instincts were spot on. Considering what happened so far, the pirates decided to run away. They didn't win when they had seventy more ships before, so why would they feel confident that they only had twenty more?

              In any case, Erean gave the order to follow them in order to crush the survivors and their ships before they could regroup with the main army. After all, Ferdinand still was supposed to have at least one hundred fifty more ships on his fleet. Despite the losses, things were going well for Zaos and his group. Despite that, Zaos still wasn't free of that weird feeling that has been bothering him for the past few days.