“Fire!”
The echo of Antony’s roar had not yet faded.
The savage smiles of victory were still frozen on every Roman soldier’s face.
They pulled the triggers.
“TWANG!”
A bowstring snapped.
No—
Not thousands of bowstrings.
Only one.
Antony froze.
Behind him, the expressions on the Roman soldiers’ faces stiffened as well.
There was no storm of arrows.
No sharp whistling tearing across the sky.
Only a bizarre, suffocating silence.
“What’s happening?”
“Why didn’t it fire?”
“My ballista is jammed!”
One soldier desperately pulled the trigger again, producing only hollow clicking sounds.
The vicious grin on Antony’s face darkened instantly.
“Useless trash! Can’t you even operate a ballista properly?!”
He was just about to explode in rage—
“General! Look!”
A centurion pointed forward, his voice trembling with incomprehensible fear.
Antony followed the direction of his finger.
And then he saw it.
Within his own fleet, the massive bow arm of a Jupiter’s Wrath ballista was slowly twisting at an impossible angle.
Like a rope being wrung apart by an invisible giant hand.
“Creeeak… groooan…”
A nauseating metallic grinding noise echoed from the weapon.
Then—
A second ballista.
A third.
The hundredth!
The thousandth!
All one thousand Jupiter’s Wrath ballistae came alive at the same time!
As though possessed by evil spirits, they began twisting and deforming wildly!
The massive bolts gleaming with deadly light—all originally aimed at the Qin fleet—collectively rotated around!
One hundred and eighty degrees!
“It… it’s aiming at me!”
On one Roman warship, a soldier let out a shrill scream.
The gigantic ballista before him was pointing directly at his chest!
“No!”
“RUN!”
“What kind of cursed thing is this?!”
The Roman fleet instantly descended into chaos.
“BOOM!”
A thunderous explosion erupted!
One completely uncontrollable ballista fired on its own!
The massive bolt, carrying unstoppable force, did not fly toward the distant enemy.
Instead—
It slammed brutally into the hull of a neighboring Roman warship!
“CRACK!”
Wood exploded everywhere!
A gigantic hole was torn through the ship’s side as seawater flooded inward violently!
The soldiers aboard screamed in despair, tumbling into the sea like dumplings thrown into boiling water.
That explosion became the signal.
“BOOM!”
“BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!”
Ten thousand arrows launched at once!
This time, it truly was a storm of arrows!
Except—
The targets were the Romans themselves!
The giant bolts carved trails of death straight through the Roman fleet formation!
Some pierced through decks and nailed soldiers alive inside the lower cabins!
Some shattered masts, sending burning sails crashing down like gigantic funeral shrouds!
Others exploded barrels of fire oil, instantly turning entire warships into blazing torches!
Screams!
Wails!
The sound of wooden hulls shattering!
The roar of raging flames!
In an instant, the sea transformed from a celebration of victory into a one-sided hell of slaughter!
“No! Stop! STOP THEM ALL!”
Antony’s desperate roar was swallowed by an even greater explosion.
Right before his eyes, a centurion-class warship on his left flank was struck simultaneously by three giant bolts.
The ship’s hull split apart down the middle like a crushed biscuit!
Countless Roman soldiers were dragged into the freezing seawater and burning flames before they could even scream.
“Hold formation! Hold the line!”
Antony drew his sword and waved it frantically.
“Cut the bowstrings! Destroy those ballistae!”
No one obeyed him.
Or rather—
No one could.
The soldiers ran wildly through the rain of friendly fire like headless flies.
Some tried to sever the ballista strings, only to be pinned to the deck—together with their weapons—by giant bolts fired from neighboring ships.
Others caught fire and leapt screaming into the sea, only to be swallowed by whirlpools created by sinking warships nearby.
Rome’s once-proud First Fleet no longer had any formation whatsoever.
Ships crashed into one another.
Soldiers trampled each other underfoot.
This was not war.
This was slaughter.
A complete and merciless slaughter carried out by the Romans upon themselves.
“General!”
The centurion beside Antony had gone deathly pale as he pointed tremblingly toward the deck beneath their feet.
Antony lowered his head.
The five grandest and most finely crafted Jupiter’s Wrath ballistae aboard his flagship Victory had also begun emitting horrifying metallic creaks.
Slowly—
They rotated direction.
Their icy arrowheads pointed directly toward the Roman soldiers aboard the ship.
One of them aimed straight at Antony’s command platform.
Antony’s body began trembling uncontrollably.
The sword slipped from his hand and clattered onto the deck.
Fear tightened around his throat like an invisible hand.
The fleet he had been so proud of.
The glory he intended to offer Rome.
The “stupid Eastern barbarians” he had mocked—
Everything had become a grotesque, bloody joke.
And he himself—
Was the punchline.
…
On the other side of the sea—
Silence reigned upon the deck of the Zhenyuan.
Wang Li stood frozen with his mouth hanging open.
He stared at the hell unfolding across the sea, watching Roman soldiers being torn apart by their own weapons.
His mind was completely blank.
Just moments earlier, he had begged for permission to attack personally and cut out the enemy commander’s tongue.
Now—
The thought itself seemed absurdly laughable.
Wang Jian and Meng Tian, those two battle-hardened veteran generals, were equally shaken.
They exchanged a glance.
And within each other’s eyes, they saw the exact same emotion.
Not fear.
Reverence.
A soul-deep reverence toward the tiny figure seated in the marshal’s position.
Without sacrificing a single soldier.
Without raising a single blade or spear.
With casual ease, he had reduced an entire enemy fleet to ashes.
What kind of immortal, godlike method was this?!
Meng Tian swallowed with difficulty.
He wanted to say something, yet found his throat unbearably dry.
Just then—
“Hah…”
A low chuckle broke the silence upon the deck.
It was Wang Jian.
This stern old general, who rarely smiled, began with a quiet laugh, then a hearty laugh, and finally burst into earth-shaking roaring laughter!
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
He slammed a fist against the ship’s railing with a thunderous bang.
Wang Li snapped out of his daze and stared blankly at his grandfather.
Wang Jian laughed until tears streamed from his eyes. Pointing toward the burning sea before them, he shouted at Meng Tian—and at everyone present.
“This battle!”
The old general’s voice was filled with exhilaration unlike anything he had ever felt before.
“It’s easier than children playing house!”
Discussion
Comments
0 comments so far.
Sign in to join the conversation and keep your activity tied to this account.
No comments yet. Start the conversation.