Wang Jian’s wild laughter echoed across the sea.
That laughter was even more piercing than the screams of the Romans on the opposite side.
Wang Li stared blankly at his grandfather, then at the sea of flames ahead of them.
He opened his mouth, but not a single word came out.
On the commander’s platform—
Ying Ziye stood up and straightened the custom-made armor on his body.
“Pass down the order.”
He spoke softly, yet the entire deck instantly fell silent.
Even Wang Jian stopped laughing.
Meng Tian straightened his posture.
Every soldier turned toward the commander’s seat.
“The entire fleet advances.”
Ying Ziye raised one finger and pointed toward the chaotic inferno ahead.
“Go collect our spoils of war.”
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
The war drums thundered once more.
This time, the rhythm was steady and oppressive.
The hundreds of black warships, forming a wall of steel upon the sea, slowly began to move forward.
They crushed toward the Roman fleet that was destroying itself.
Aboard the Victory.
Antony had just climbed back to his feet.
He stared at his fleet collapsing under its own hail of arrows, reduced to utter chaos.
“Hold the line! Hold the line!”
He drew his sword and roared commands.
“They’re only using some kind of sorcery! Do not fear!”
“Destroy those cursed ballistas! Throw them into the sea!”
But amid the chaos of battle, his orders sounded powerless.
Then—
he saw the black fleet moving.
They did not fire cannons.
Nor did they launch arrows.
They simply advanced in perfect formation.
An unprecedented pressure descended upon Antony’s heart.
“General! They’re coming!”
“Quick! Turn the ships! Run!”
A centurion stumbled toward him, despair filling his voice.
“Run?”
Antony grabbed him by the collar.
“We are Rome’s First Fleet! We never retreat!”
Before he could finish—
Whoosh!
A faint tearing sound cut through the air.
The dagger at the centurion’s waist suddenly flew out on its own.
As if pulled by invisible strings.
Clang!
The dagger shot across dozens of meters and stuck firmly onto the black hull of the nearest Qin warship.
The centurion froze.
Antony froze as well.
Then—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A dense storm of metallic whistles and collisions erupted throughout the Roman fleet all at once!
One Roman soldier had just raised his sword to hack apart a malfunctioning ballista when a powerful force ripped the weapon from his hand and sent it flying into the distance.
Another soldier’s iron helmet was violently torn from his head, spinning through the air before slamming onto a Qin ship.
Countless daggers, short swords, helmets, armor plates, water flasks, belt buckles—
every metal object belonging to the Romans suddenly “came alive.”
They tore themselves free from their owners one after another.
Like a swarm of black locusts filling the sky.
With endless clang-clang-clangs, they flew toward the approaching wall of black warships and stuck fast to them.
In mere moments—
the entire Roman fleet, tens of thousands of soldiers strong, had been forcibly disarmed.
Their hands were empty.
Their armor hung in pieces.
They stood there dumbfounded, staring at their flying weapons like a flock of plucked chickens.
“Witchcraft! This is Eastern witchcraft!”
“Gods save us!”
Absolute panic exploded through the fleet like a plague.
Aboard the Zhenyuan.
Wang Li stared at the Qin ship hulls now covered with Roman weapons of every kind, resembling some bizarre wall of trophies.
His throat went dry.
So this was what the Marshal meant by “collecting the spoils of war”?
This was simply too…
Wang Jian and Meng Tian exchanged glances.
The bodies of the two old generals trembled slightly as they struggled to suppress their excitement.
After fighting wars their entire lives, they had never seen anything like this.
And then—
something even more terrifying happened.
“AHH!”
A heavily armored Roman infantryman let out a scream.
He tried to step backward, only to realize his feet were stuck to the deck.
He looked down.
His iron breastplate had been firmly pulled against an iron nail in the deck!
He had become an ornament nailed to the ship.
“Help me! I can’t move!”
Two nearby comrades rushed over to pull him free.
Bang!
A dull impact sounded.
The moment those two armored soldiers got close, a tremendous force dragged them over as well.
Three men, three suits of heavy armor, fused tightly together.
Like a grotesque mass of human-shaped magnets.
“Get away from me!”
“AHH! My leg!”
Scenes like this erupted across every ship in the Roman fleet at the same time.
Rome’s proud heavy infantry had become the greatest joke of all.
Their armor was no longer a symbol of glory and protection.
It had become the cruelest prison imaginable.
Some were stuck to the ship rails.
Some were pinned against the iron bands around the masts.
Some were glued flat against the deck.
Some became trapped against each other’s armor, unable to move.
Others tried to leap into the sea to escape, only for their heavy iron armor to become deadly weights, dragging them straight into the deep before they could even cry for help.
The decks were filled with writhing “iron cans.”
They struggled and screamed, yet could not escape the steel wrapped around their bodies.
Antony stared at the hellish scene unfolding before him.
His body began to grow cold.
Cold from the soles of his feet all the way to the top of his head.
“No… no…”
he muttered weakly.
Creaaak… groooan…
A spine-chilling sound rose from beneath his feet.
Not human screams.
Not metal grinding.
It was wood groaning.
The entire warship was crying out in agony.
Antony looked down.
A thick plank beneath his feet was slowly bulging upward.
At its edge, a massive iron nail was being pulled out of the wood bit by bit!
“No!”
BOOM!
Not far away, the side hull of another warship suddenly exploded apart!
Countless iron nails shot outward like bullets, whistling toward the Qin fleet together with splinters of wood!
A gigantic hole instantly appeared in the ship’s side.
Seawater came flooding in madly.
“The ship! The ship’s falling apart!”
“Save us!”
Desperate screams pierced the heavens.
Without suffering a single attack, the Roman warships were beginning to disintegrate on their own!
The iron fittings supporting the keel were ripped free!
The nails fastening the decks were pulled out!
The iron bands securing the masts twisted and warped!
These warships—crafted by Rome’s finest artisans with the strongest materials available—were now collapsing piece by piece under the sunlight like toy blocks glued together.
Antony staggered backward.
He slammed into the railing of the command platform.
The cold touch sent a jolt through him.
He turned sharply.
His golden ceremonial sword had somehow fallen to the ground, its hilt tightly stuck against the metal edge of the platform.
Even his helmet—the glorious one adorned with magnificent red plumes—had toppled sideways and become firmly attached.
He, too, was trapped.
At that moment—
RUMBLE!
The entire Victory shook violently!
Antony was thrown to the ground by the force.
It was not a collision.
Nor a wave.
It was…
an indescribable, irresistible force grabbing hold of the entire ship!
Struggling to his feet, Antony lunged toward the railing.
Then he saw it.
He saw his flagship, the Victory—Rome’s mightiest warship—slowly turning on its own.
Its bow no longer faced forward.
Instead, it pointed directly toward the mountain-like black warship—
the Zhenyuan.
The Victory was moving.
Dragged by an invisible force, it was charging straight toward the Zhenyuan!
The rowers were pinned to their seats by their own equipment!
Sailors rolled across the deck screaming and wailing!
No one could stop it!
Nothing could stop it!
Antony’s mouth hung open as rasping sounds escaped his throat.
He watched his ship.
Watched all his glory and ambition.
And saw it advancing willingly—
like a sacrificial beast walking itself toward the altar before slaughter—
throwing itself into the gaping maw of that savage black dragon.
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