World Development System 153 83. End of the Battle.

7 of the front ships from Shannon's fleet immediately caught fire as the projectiles met their target.
Once again Bran ordered his men without any stop, "Fire."
2 of the ships that caught fire was full of raging fires as it seemed like a raging fireball as people stopped trying to save the ship and immediately dived into the water to reach for other ships to save their lives.
While another 4 ships too caught fire in the previous assault. During this time of attrition, a lot of ships were obliterated in ashes. With knights removing their armor and weapons while going for other ships.
Captain Shannon had red eyes which seemed it would pop out any second as he looked at two directions, 1. The direction at which Grim and Darius escaped. 2. His eternal enemy from the old days, The pirate Blake.
Shannon was quite angry but he still had a calm head as he immediately gave orders to his men after watching Blake's fleet assaulting their ships non-stop, "We are retreating."
The vice-admiral nodded, "Yes sir," The Vice-admiral blew the horn to indicate their retreat to his men. All the ships started retreated after hearing the orders.

Eric's men were full of cheers as Blake's men arrived in time to support.
One of the men from isolated ships joked after Blake's fleet arrived, "Good that you guys came in time or they would have died by my mini-ballistae,"
Sean was full of joy but he kept his calm as he gave orders, "Catch to prisoners alive, they will be very useful to us. We will celebrate later. This battle is still not over. We have to make them run at least."
One of his men reconfirmed and asked Sean, "Boss, weren't we ordered to kill them and make an example out of it for their offense?"
Sean thought and spoke, "I guess Eric's orders are still valid. And Blake wouldn't let them go anyway. It's okay, you can catch them or kill them."

Blake and Shannon met their eyes from their ships as Blake gave a teasing smile with a playful look to Shannon which seemed he was mocking Shannon for running away even with a bigger fleet.
Shannon spoke gravely as he looked at the disdain from Blake's eyes, "I have never been humiliated so much in my life. Today, I am running from a pirate who I used to chase for almost a decade. All because of both of those assholes who ruined my plans. I swear I would have chased and killed Darius if we were not in the same army."

Blake gave his orders coldly as he looked at Shannon's fleet running away, "Leave none of them alive. Let them taste the same consequences when they used to hunt us like dogs. Not a single man should be left alive. Since they decided to come into this war, they should be prepared to lose their lives."
Bran sighed but he too had a determined look as he spoke, "I guess the boss is relishing and taking revenge for our past. These assholes anyway don't deserve any mercy just as they didn't spare any of our comrades in the past."

Eric and his men were quite surprised after watching the ruthlessness of Blake's men. Even when Eric had given his men a free hand but they were still capturing prisoners if it was possible."

Blake looked at them and spoke with a smile, "Don't worry, we won't interfere with your arrests. You can think of this as us releasing our years of stress and pain for being chased with injustice. Shannon's men will know true fear after this encounter. However, you guys shouldn't interfere when we chase them."
Eric smiled as he didn't interfere and started organizing his men. The men who were caught by Eric's men still felt great they were caught by Eric or they would face the same fate as the other men.

Bran asked Blake after watching Shannon's fleet retreating, "Do we chase and catch them? You know we can capture them."
Blake shook his head as he spoke, "No, let them feel they have superior ships for the time being. We will not be revealing the real speeds just now in this small battle. They will be getting a lot of surprises later on. Just chase them enough so that they don't dare to take up arms against us in the next battle."
Only 7 ships from Shannon's fleet were able to escape from this ordeal. One of the ships among this was of Juan's whose captain was quite cunning when it came to understanding a battlefield.
The Helmsman spoke to the captain after they escaped, "Captain you were quite smart when you gave that order to ram our ship on another ship. We would have faced the same fate as those 7 ships if we weren't out of the battle early on."
Captain smiled and spoke, "Hmm.... don't speak too much. I will not be with you guys from the next battle. The sea battles are doomed. I will advise you to leave with your family as early as possible when you reach the port. I ain't fighting a battle where there is a 100 percent chance of loss. Those men weren't even chasing us with intent. It felt like they were simply playing with us when Blake's men were chasing us. They are hiding a lot of things from my point of view."
Juan was quite stunned after hearing the captain but this time he didn't take it to heart. Instead, he too had decided to leave the navy and travel with his girlfriend. While investigating this war in more detail in his travels so that he can come to a conclusion.
Juan spoke to the other guy who was with him the whole time, "I too will leave. I think I need to at least repay by doing something meaningful when that old man sacrificed his life for me. I can't let his sacrifice be in vain."
The captain was quite surprised and smiled at the same time after hearing Juan's decision. He didn't say anything to Juan but just murmured which was heard by the Helmsman. "It seems, this kid has grown a bit."
Helmsman smiled and spoke, "It happens with most of the kids after their first war. Some come to understand the reality of wars while some are consumed after their first win."

The man who helped Juan previously spoke after hearing him, He spoke without meeting his eyes with Juan, "I guess I will join you. It's not like I am doing this to avoid war. I am only worried about you. And you also need to carry out this old man's funeral, right? I can help you. It's true, I am really not doing this to avoid war. Don't look at me like that."

There was a cheerful mood on the ships of Blake and Eric as Shannon ran away with his fleet.

Sean asked, "I wonder what will be Duke's reaction after this battle."
Blake thought and spoke, "I am not really worried about Duke but more about the Royal family. Anyway, what are the casualties on your end?"
Eric sighed and spoke, "109 men died to be exact in this battle. The 5th ship took a lot of damage from their archers. I hope Lord soon solves the problem of armors. I guess you are worried because of your past with the Royal family."
Blake looked and thought, "Hmm... true. Okay, lets go back for now or do you want me to escort you to Pearl city?
Eric sighed and gave up on going to Pearl city after the gruesome battle, "Nah, we will go back restock on our ammunition."
Eric looked at Sean and ordered, "Sean, Also inform Marquis via the letter about the attack. They need to be careful from now on."
Sean nodded and sails were turned back to the eastern port city.
***
Grim saw that Shannon's fleet was coming their way. Darius laughed as he saw and spoke, "I knew it but aren't the fatalities more than what we expected even in our worst case scenarios?"
Grim thought and gave his opinion, "They should have at least brought one of the enemy ships. The fatalities are quite high in this battle. We lost a total of 45+ ships this time around. I guess our losses are around 5000 men at least. Hmm... Even one of the vanguard ships has survived. I guess they were quite lucky this time around. Anyways it was good that we escaped safely or we would be in hell right now."
Darius laughed and agreed, "True."
Juan meanwhile was looking at Grim and Darius with extreme cold eyes. Within those eyes were the deep raging fires of anger which he felt during this battle.

During this whole time, neither of the ships greeted each other. As a Lord Grim can't lower down his head while Shannon was quite pissed because of the earlier battle.
Shannon was quite angry but decided to ignore them.
One of the men from Grim's gossiped with his other mates, "It seems even that Pirate Blake's fleet came this time around. We were quite lucky or they would have chased us till the Laguna Port. As Lord Darius guessed, this was a losing battle."

The other man spoke, "It seems there will be sparks between Lord Shannon and Darius."
Another man advised, "Shh.. don't speak bull now that we are in presence of both."
The Vice-admiral asked Shannon, "Lord do you really think our other fleet will be able take the ships from Duke Rose? Because that is a smaller fleet compared to our last raid."

Shannon thought and nodded, "There is a chance since they won't have runic projectiles as much as Eric's fleet had currently and a part of Rose's fleet is currently traveling with him towards the south for his meeting with the elves so this would be our best chance. I hope Erin doesn't disappoint me. He is my best disciple over the years I am sure he will succeed. This time we also have pirates attacking Rose's ship for a lot of days so they must have sustained a lot of losses. It should be an easier battle for him."

The Vice-admiral nodded and spoke, "Hmm... yes he won't be facing the same problems as we did. Additionally, he has full command with none of the superiors tagging along. I wonder how we will explain this loss to the Duke, 45 ships in one battle." He sighed and waited to reach the port.

Grim told Darius on his ship, "You know what to do, right?"
Darius nodded, "Yes, sir."
Grim spoke gravely, "I will repeat again, tell father we already anticipated that this was a trap by that pirate Blake and we wanted to reduce our losses when we gave orders for retreat. We can Let Shannon go under the rug. He will anyway retain his position as an admiral. We wouldn't want to be implicated by those ministers and lose our face in the court. We already lost a lot of face in front of that pirate and that upstart. That upstart is quite good at hiding a lot of things."

Chapter end