The Unstoppable Tide

Mumoona watched as the slender warships charged towards the dense naval fleet, appearing to be like hitting a rock with an egg. However, in reality, it was as effortless and comfortable as slicing through butter with a hot knife.

The side with an overwhelming numerical advantage seemed like a vast yet useless flock of sheep, hesitating, fearful, darting left and right, trampling each other, no matter how many there were, they were just lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

The warships flying the white background with a black cross flag seemed like bloodthirsty wolves eyeing the sheep.

As long as they wished, they could seize any Esman lamb with lightning speed, slit its throat, bleed it, and then tear it apart effortlessly.

Mumoona looked at the sea with a grim face.

Her ministers, both civil and military, held their breaths, not daring to make a sound.

It was truly embarrassing.

With a fleet several times the size of the opponent's, they were being beaten down as if a father were beating his son.

In just a moment, they had lost seven or eight warships, while the casualties on the other side were almost negligible.

"Tell Bartolou," Mumoona said coldly, "if he can't retain these few ships, he doesn't need to come back to see me."

Compared to the plummeting morale of Esman, the Normans were celebrating.

In fact, when the Shu Yichao's warships appeared on the sea, the soldiers on the city walls noticed them.

And when Shu Yichao launched his attack, it quickly attracted the attention of the entire city.

As Shu Yichao led his fleet to rampage through the Esman navy, it was as if they were in a realm of their own, and the cheers from the city walls thundered.

Even Constantine XI hurriedly climbed up the city wall to witness this exhilarating scene.

"Mother Mary," he crossed himself, tears welling up in his eyes. "Is it the Lord blessing us?"

Having spent half of his life in warfare, he watched with blood boiling, wishing he was also on those few warships, wielding a sword, crazily harvesting the lives of Esman warriors.

If the Normans on the city walls were just exhilarated, the people on the warships were already frenzied.

When did those arrogant barbarian warriors become so easy to deal with?

When the first warship was taken down, Lady Mati and the others were merely astonished.

By the time of the second warship, they were incredulous.

And as the third, fourth warship, and so on were taken down, they were unable to think, completely consumed by madness.

"Kill!" Lady Mati roared, wielding her long sword and charging towards the Esman fleet with the steppe cavalry, unfazed even if she were struck by three arrows.

They only knew to charge, to charge to death, as if they believed that as long as they continued to hack away, they could carve a bloody path to Constantinople through the Esman fleet.

In fact, all the Esman ships that stood in their way were powerless, collapsing upon a touch.

However, just as Shu Yichao's fleet was about to break through the dense Esman fleet,

"Whoosh—" The billowing sails suddenly fell down, and the ships, which had just been swift as the wind, slowed down significantly.

Soon, they became slower and slower until they lost momentum and came to a complete stop.

"No wind?" Shu Yichao flicked off the blood stains on his curved blade and curiously looked at the deflated sails.

Although the type of warship he was on had oars, it primarily relied on sails—

After all, the steppe cavalrymen were quite enthusiastic about commanding them to burn, kill, and plunder. If you made them row oars, they would slack off so much that it would be shocking to gods and ghosts.

So, controlling the ships was left to the sailors provided by Madame Mati.

But the manpower was naturally insufficient, so once there was no wind, the ships basically had to wait.

"God bless us!" Seeing Shu Yichao's fleet come to a stop, Bartolou Pasha, who had been thinking about where he should hide, immediately shouted joyfully.

"All warships, charge immediately!"

"Kill them all!"

"Don't leave anyone alive!"

"Why now?" Madame Mati exclaimed in despair.

"Is this also your will, my Lord?"

Who would have thought that heaven and hell were just a thin line apart.

"What are they shouting about?" Compared to the plummeting morale of the Norman people, Shu Yichao remained unaffected.

No wind blowing?

That means they can continue chopping for a while longer, right?

"So noisy—"

"Brothers, regardless of those guys." Shu Yichao pointed to the approaching Esman warships.

"Everyone gets a head, everyone gets experience, line up, no one should grab."

Bang!

The ships collided, and Esman soldiers surged like a tide.

"Whoosh—" Watching the small fleet completely surrounded, Bartolou finally relaxed, starting to tidy up his robes.

Should he report victory to the Sultan later, or should he plead guilty?

Should his voice tremble a bit, or should he sound excited?

"At most, it will only take half an hour to resolve this." He thought confidently.

Indeed, the Esman people were not adept at naval warfare, but now, even if they relied on drowning people, they could still drown those people.

Twenty thousand versus five hundred, the advantage was mine.

In the eyes of his anticipation, Shu Yichao led his troops to slaughter the first group of people who came close.

"..."

Next was the second ship.

"..."

Then the third ship.

In Bartolou's dazed eyes, the remaining warships hesitated, looking at each other, none daring to take the lead.

"This, this..." He stared blankly, not even noticing tearing his luxurious robes into pieces.

"Who are they?" Mumoona, who had been sitting down, ready to wait for Bartolou's triumphant report, suddenly stood up with eyes full of shock.

"Such a courageous general in the world?"

"Such a fierce army in the world?"

"So weak." Shu Yichao evaluated his opponents like this, "Even worse than high-level cannon fodder."

In battle, one side didn't need several times the strength of the other to defeat them. Once one side's attributes exceeded a quarter of the opponent's, it was almost a crushing situation.

Unfortunately, even though the steppe archers' attributes were only average in Shu Yichao's eyes, they often outnumbered the Esman soldiers by more than double.

Not to mention that the Esman people were generally seasick.

The result was that the Esman fleet suffered casualties in the thousands, but the losses on Shu Yichao's side, excluding the Norman people, were only a dozen or so.

Such a stark difference in casualties was only because naval battles were hard to escape from, otherwise, the Esman fleet would have dispersed long ago.

"Hey, did the game bug out?" Shu Yichao, who hadn't had enough killing, moved his shoulders and looked at the Esman fleet spinning nearby, clicking his tongue.

"It's true, when there are too many mods, everyone gets stuck, it looks so dull."

Grabbing an arrow flying over, stringing it on his bow, and shooting the person shooting arrows from the opposite side through the head, Shu Yichao found that the Esman people seemed even more dumbfounded.

After a while, they stopped shooting arrows altogether.

The sea fell into a strange silence.

"But it's okay, if the mountain doesn't come, I'll go to the mountain—" Shu Yichao pointed and said, "You, you, you—"

"Row over there for me."

"It's really weird."

"Why isn't this distance getting shorter?"

After shaking the oars for a while, Shu Yichao couldn't figure out why he couldn't catch any Esman warships.

"Get the crossbows!" Bartolou, who had been dumbfounded for half the day, suddenly woke up, "Get the crossbows!"

"Kill him, he must be killed!"

"Sink those ships!"

"I don't believe it, can those guys still fight us while swimming!?"

Bartoru's orders came a bit late.

The sea breeze whistled.

When the flag with a black cross on a white background was hoisted again, all the Esman warships, whether intentional or not, cleared a path straight to Constantinople.

"Go fast!" Seeing this, Madame Mati knew she couldn't miss the opportunity and immediately commanded the sailors to hoist the sails and rush towards the Golden Horn.

Under the urging of their superiors, the Esman warships began to leisurely "pursue," but the distance between them was getting farther and farther.

"Whoosh—" When Shu Yichao's fleet sailed away, there were successive sighs from the Esman fleet.

The sailors looked at each other, only to find that their faces were full of fear and horror.

"It's over." Seeing the eight warships, which sailed smoothly into the Golden Horn amidst the cheers of the Normans, Bartolou's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed on the deck with a thud.

Now he was going to be played in Mumoona Sultan's hands like a puppet.