DLERB -Chapter 177 Rome Laughs While Demanding Surrender — The Eight-Year-Old Marshal: “Let Me Finish This Grape Before I Flip the Table”

Rome’s First Fleet cut through the waves.

Caesar’s command echoed in the ears of every soldier.

They were going to drag back the Easterners’ giant ship as a trophy for the Pantheon!

Along the shores, Roman citizens cheered wildly for yet another glorious victory soon to arrive.

General Antony stood proudly at the bow of his magnificent flagship, Victory.

The sea wind billowed his crimson cape.

“General! Target sighted ahead!”

The lookout’s voice carried a faint tremor.

Antony raised his monocular telescope.

At the place where sea and sky met, a black dot appeared.

No—

Not one.

A whole line of them.

Antony lowered the telescope and smiled.

“So it’s not just one ship. These Eastern cowards actually dared to form a fleet.”

The centurion beside him laughed as well.

“Perfect. We can wipe them all out in one sweep and save ourselves the trouble of searching for them later.”

As the distance closed—

The laughter aboard the Roman fleet gradually faded.

Then disappeared completely.

Every soldier stared with mouth agape.

They saw it now.

Those were not ships.

They were mountains.

Dozens of black mountains moving across the sea.

At the front of the fleet stood one vessel crowned with a savage black dragon head at its bow.

It was too enormous.

So enormous that the Victory looked like a toy boat floating in a bathtub by comparison.

“Gods above…”

A young soldier let out a weak groan, his legs beginning to buckle.

“What are you panicking for?!”

Antony roared furiously.

He was the first to recover from the overwhelming visual shock.

“They’re nothing but wood!”

Pointing toward the distant black warships, arrogance returned to his face.

“Think about it! With ships that huge, how fast could they possibly move?”

“How long would it take them to turn? Half a day? An entire day?”

Antony’s voice reignited the soldiers’ confidence.

“In front of our warships, they’re nothing more than living targets!”

“Gigantic, slow, idiotic targets!”

“Hahahahaha!”

The Roman soldiers burst into laughter once more.

That’s right.

What was the point of being huge?

It only meant they had a larger area to get hit!

Antony adjusted his cape and cleared his throat.

He intended to let these Eastern barbarians hear Rome’s majestic judgment in the final moments of their lives.

“Easterners on the opposite side, listen carefully!”

His voice carried far across the sea through a crude iron loudspeaker.

“I am Antony, commander of Rome’s First Fleet!”

“You have trespassed into Roman territorial waters. This is a provocation against glorious Rome!”

“I order you to halt your ships immediately and lay down your weapons!”

“Hand over all the silk, gold, and women aboard your ships!”

Antony’s face was full of mockery.

“If you behave well, I may consider sparing your miserable lives and allowing you to become slaves of Rome!”

“For barbarians like you, that would be the greatest honor of your lives!”

“Otherwise, my Jupiter’s Wrath will, in the very next moment, tear apart your stupid wooden coffins—and your bodies along with them!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

The Roman fleet once again erupted into thunderous laughter.

…

Aboard the Zhenyuan.

Wang Li’s face had already turned the color of pig liver.

“Your Highness!”

Unable to endure it any longer, he stepped forward and cupped his fists heavily toward the small figure seated in the marshal’s position.

“What kind of bird language are these Western barbarians barking?!”

“Even if I can’t understand them, judging by their faces, they’re definitely not saying anything good!”

Wang Li’s hand gripped the hilt of his sword so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“This general requests permission to engage!”

“Just give me one ship! A hundred men will be enough!”

“I’ll charge over there and cut out the tongue of that idiot screaming at the bow, then serve it to Your Highness as a drinking snack!”

Beside him—

The two veteran generals, Wang Jian and Meng Tian, stood like iron towers.

Clad in heavy armor, they remained silent.

Faced with the enemy’s shouting, these old commanders—men who had long ago walked through mountains of corpses and seas of blood—showed nothing but cold disdain.

Their duty was not to trade insults with the enemy.

Their duty was to carry out the marshal’s orders.

And since the marshal had not spoken, they remained motionless as statues.

Across the entire deck, thousands of black-armored soldiers stood equally still.

Only the Romans’ wild laughter echoed across the sea.

It sounded especially grating.

All eyes were focused upon the marshal’s seat.

Ying Ziye sat there calmly.

The oversized marshal’s armor made his tiny frame appear almost comical.

Yet he did not look toward the opposing fleet.

Nor did he pay attention to Wang Li’s agitation.

He was leisurely eating a cluster of crystal-clear grapes.

They were tribute fruits rushed over from Donghai Commandery by fast horse relays and preserved carefully with ice.

He plucked one grape and placed it into his mouth.

Sweet juice burst across his tongue.

As though everything unfolding before him were nothing more than scenery upon a stage.

Time passed second by second.

Antony’s surrender speech had already left his throat dry.

Even the Roman soldiers’ laughter had gradually become sparse.

Because they realized—

The black giant warships opposite them showed absolutely no reaction.

They neither surrendered nor fled.

Like a group of deaf men.

Or perhaps…

A group of corpses.

An increasingly strange atmosphere began spreading through the Roman fleet.

“General… they seem… unafraid of us?” a centurion whispered quietly.

“Unafraid?”

Antony looked as though he had heard the greatest joke imaginable.

“They’re simply scared stupid!”

“A bunch of ignorant fools overwhelmed by the majesty of Rome!”

He raised the loudspeaker once again, preparing for another round of humiliation.

At that moment—

Aboard the Zhenyuan—

Ying Ziye swallowed the final grape.

He casually tossed aside the bare grape stem.

Then he slowly rose from the marshal’s seat.

He lightly dusted off his hands, though there was no dirt upon them.

That simple movement instantly changed the atmosphere across the entire deck.

Wang Li stopped breathing.

Wang Jian and Meng Tian leaned slightly forward.

Every soldier tensed.

They knew.

The marshal was about to give his command.

Ying Ziye walked to the ship’s railing.

He glanced down at the densely packed Roman warships below, which resembled swarming ants.

Then he looked toward Antony, who was still gesturing arrogantly from his bow.

He could not even be bothered to ask what the man had been shouting.

Instead, he merely turned toward Qinglong, who had been standing silently behind him the entire time, and spoke a single sentence.

A sentence soft and calm—

Yet one that spread clearly across the entire deck.

“Qinglong.”

“Pass down the order.”

Ying Ziye raised one small finger and pointed toward the rows of sinister objects concealed beneath enormous oilcloth coverings along the outer sides of the ship.

“Remove those covers for this marshal.”