Chapter 434 -434-Total Annihilation
At this point, a battle between the two sides was unavoidable.
Just then, John’s fleet suddenly began to move.
Countless small assault boats surged forward like they had gone mad, charging straight toward the harbor of Cloudspire Harbor.
Each boat carried three pirates.
With more than a thousand of these small vessels rushing forward at once, there were already several thousand pirates in the first wave alone.
And that was not all.
The moment those boats charged out, another thousand-plus small assault boats immediately moved up from the rear of John’s fleet to take their place.
Then they charged forward as well.
Wave after wave surged toward the harbor like an endless tide.
If not for the limitations of the surrounding waters, John’s assault boats might truly have covered the entire sea.
Seeing the movement from John’s side, the commander of Cloudspire Harbor immediately ordered,
"Attack every enemy target that enters firing range!"
"We’ll wipe out these pirates before they can even reach the city!"
There was no other choice.
John had not committed any of his large warships.
He had not even sent out his medium-sized vessels.
Under these circumstances, Cloudspire Harbor could only bombard the incoming boats indiscriminately.
Everyone could already imagine what would happen next.
Once Cloudspire Harbor had exhausted most of its ammunition and defensive strength dealing with these small craft, the King’s Edge Pirates would inevitably send in their medium and large warships.
That was practically guaranteed.
The commander of Cloudspire Harbor had already realized this.
But there was nothing he could do.
The initiative on this battlefield was no longer in his hands.
No matter how he fought, he was being forced to follow John’s rhythm.
Countless pirates came surging toward the harbor like a tide.
Cloudspire Harbor immediately opened fire.
Cannon fire erupted across the defensive line, and shells poured down like a torrential rain from the sky.
Countless cannonballs smashed into the sea, throwing up enormous pillars of water.
Most of the shots missed.
Some assault boats were unlucky enough to pass near where a shell landed, only to be overturned by the massive waves thrown up by the impact.
And the unluckiest boats were hit directly.
Their hulls were instantly blasted apart, while the pirates aboard were crushed or torn apart on the spot.
But such direct hits were rare.
In an era where it could take roughly a hundred cannon shots to score a single hit...
countless small assault boats broke through the dense curtain of fire and rushed into the harbor’s outer defense zone.
There, they came face-to-face with the twenty destroyers.
"Fire!!!"
The destroyers formed part of Cloudspire Harbor’s layered defense system.
They were positioned outside the harbor as the second defensive line.
Behind them, the harbor fortifications themselves formed the third line of defense.
The firepower aboard these destroyers was no weaker than that of large warships.
In an instant, countless cannons fired together.
Unlike the coastal batteries, the destroyers were clearly much more accurate.
On average, only a few dozen shots were needed to sink one of the small assault boats.
But the problem was...
there were simply too many of them.
And even more continued to arrive from behind, one wave after another, streaking across the sea like meteors tearing through the night sky.
Losing a few boats and pirates meant nothing to John.
In fact...
these small assault boats and the pirates aboard them had been designated as expendable from the beginning.
Even if they failed to accomplish anything else...
simply forcing the enemy to waste ammunition would already be worthwhile.
The destroyers unleashed everything they had.
Yet even that was not enough to stop the endless swarm of assault boats.
"Swarm tactics!"
One of the destroyer commanders gritted his teeth as he watched the scene before him.
"This is a swarm attack!"
"They’re using countless small vessels to overwhelm us all at once..."
"I never imagined the enemy commander—or their entire force—would be capable of something like this."
"I always thought only a formal Naval Corps had the organization and resources necessary to use such a tactic."
"Pirates should never have been capable of it!"
Everyone knew what pirates were like.
They could fight well when the battle was going in their favor.
But the moment they encountered resistance, suffered a setback, or saw the situation turning against them...
their morale would collapse.
A swarm tactic demanded far more than numbers.
It required coordination.
Courage.
High morale.
A fair and reliable system of rewards and punishment.
And massive logistical support.
Normally, only a formal Naval Corps could meet all those conditions.
What the commander did not know was that John had already transformed his pirates through overwhelming amounts of money.
He had promised them stable benefits.
Established a military merit system.
Created fair and transparent paths for promotion.
Little by little, he had transformed a collection of scattered outlaws into warriors who were no worse than those of the Naval Corps.
Most importantly...
John was willing to pay them.
Pirates who sought money would risk their lives to earn more of it.
They could endure fear.
They could tolerate temporary setbacks.
Pirates who sought status would fight desperately for promotions.
They now possessed a genuine sense of ownership toward John’s forces.
Some of them wanted victory even more badly than John himself.
Under those circumstances, executing swarm tactics was no longer difficult at all.
Countless assault boats broke through the destroyers’ firepower and began charging directly toward the larger warships.
It had to be understood that a destroyer’s hull towered several times higher than these tiny assault boats.
Trying to ram one was practically like throwing an egg against a rock.
And yet...
the pirates did it anyway.
Like moths flying into a flame, they charged forward without fear of death.
The destroyer commander stared at the scene in disbelief.
"What could possibly make these pirates this vicious?"
"They’ve practically abandoned their fear of death..."
"This is terrifying."
He was still thinking when a chain of explosions suddenly erupted beside him.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions thundered one after another.
Whenever one of the small assault boats managed to touch a destroyer...
it suddenly exploded.
The blast wave was so powerful that it could lift the massive destroyer half a meter out of the water.
And under repeated explosions, the hulls of the destroyers began to crack and collapse.
Countless sailors aboard the destroyers desperately tried to save themselves...
jumping into the sea one after another.
"No!"
"Some of those small boats... are carrying gunpowder barrels!"
The destroyer commander finally understood.
Some of the assault boats had been packed with gunpowder barrels.
As they approached a destroyer, the pirates aboard would ignite the barrels.
Then, the moment the small boat collided with the destroyer...
Boom!
The resulting explosion would tear into the larger vessel.
"Hiss..."
The destroyer commander sucked in a cold breath.
"It’s a chain of schemes."
"One trap after another."
"The enemy commander’s calculations run incredibly deep..."
"And he’s utterly ruthless!"
What he did not know was that when it came to scheming...
John was in a league of his own.
You thought it was just an ordinary little boat?
Wrong.
It was a boat that could explode.
You thought this was just an ordinary tactic?
Wrong again.
It was a series of interconnected traps, each one forcing the enemy to dance to John’s tune.
BOOM!!!
A deafening explosion suddenly erupted beside the destroyer commander.
This time...
it was his own ship.
His heart sank.
Without hesitation, he gritted his teeth and jumped overboard.
"Swim back!"
"If I can make it back to the harbor, I might still survive!"
That was what he thought.
But the moment he hit the water...
he realized just how naive he had been.
The pirates had suicide boats for dealing with enemy ships.
And they had prepared something else for soldiers who jumped into the sea.
Fishing nets.
Not ordinary fishing nets—
but heavy nets covered with hooks and barbs.
The pirates cast them into the water.
With a single throw...
an enormous section of the sea was covered.