From Skaven to God of War

Chapter 239: The Ratman Fleet Arrives at the New World

When Sheng Qi climbed down from the bathtub battleship and touched the ground again.

Peace, indescribable peace and tranquility.

A coast made of reefs, with a small piece of land remaining in the gap between the reefs.

Sheng Qi fell from the metal bathtub while struggling.

Half of it was still in the sea, and the other half was resting on the beach.

Too calm, even a little dull.

The rat people on land could at least light torches to illuminate the darkness where there was no light at all, but the conditions on the sea did not allow Sheng Qi to do so.

The complete darkness was almost driving him crazy.

When he set out, he brought thirty warships with him, but after seven days of darkness, he only had thirteen warships left.

Or, fortunately, there were thirteen ships left for him.

The huge bell on the bow worked. The noisy bell helped the rats to stick together at sea, which prevented the Western Expeditionary Force led by Sheng Qi from being wiped out in this unexpected disaster.

But he didn't know where he was now.

Sheng Qi didn't know where he was. He just wanted to lie here quietly for a while.

I want to take a breather from those painful memories.

But sometimes, the more you want peace, the more you will be disturbed.

On the sea in the distance, a point of light suddenly appeared in the sky.

Lights up the area.

Practical spells have brought a lot of convenience to the human side.

All it takes is a wizard, two or three darkvisions, and an illumination spell, and the human warships can sail into the sea just as the lightless day passes.

If it weren't for the fact that dark vision was essentially the same as the ratmen's night vision, which was low-light vision rather than darkness vision, human warships would still be able to set sail even in the darkest moments.

The human navigator who had gained dark vision discovered the ratman fleet gathering here.

After casting some lighting spells, a human fleet sailed towards the location where the ratman fleet was docked.

From a distance, a fireball was thrown out. The human side chose to directly attack these strange-looking rat warships.

Sheng Qi was startled by the noise.

His claws tightly grasped the sand on the beach. He really didn't want to climb onto this damn thing again, and he didn't want to continue drifting on the sea.

It was just obvious that he didn't have any other options.

This ocean journey left him with a great psychological trauma, a trauma that would never heal until his death.

But Sheng Qi suppressed the trauma. The thin guy crawled up from the peaceful beach and climbed onto the warship that terrified him again.

No matter how afraid he was, no matter how unwilling he was, he would not give up the army in his hands, his only support.

The flag was raised on the bathtub battleship in the dark night.

Amid the noisy and piercing bell sounds, Sheng Qi, with an extremely ferocious expression, gave the order to the ratman fleet to advance.

Rope Seven also has something that he will never give up even if he dies.

In order to become a real big shot, Sheng Qi is willing to do anything.

Amidst the whipping and scolding, the equally dying slave rats burst out their last bit of strength, and the ratman fleet without sails began to accelerate.

The two sides approached each other on the sea, and as they got closer, the appearance of the human warship appeared clearly in front of the rat people.

Compared to the bathtubs driven by the rat people, these human ships are more in line with the concept of battleships.

The ship has a fusiform hull and three masts installed on it. Driven by the wind, it is much faster than the ratmen's bathtub battleship.

Not only that, under the effect of that illumination, you can see human warriors gradually gathering on the upper decks of these warships.

Most of them were holding various kinds of scimitars and hand axes in their hands, and gathered on the upper deck to make preparations.

At the very end of the warship, on a tower that was much taller than the upper deck, shadowy figures began to appear. They were archers. Not only archers, but also some mages in robes mixed in.

The human side is rapidly preparing for war.

Their strategy was also very simple, or in other words, before the emergence of artillery, the combat mode on the sea was not so complicated, and boarding combat was an important part.

Human battles at sea also continue this pattern, getting close, touching each other, and then fighting each other on the deck.

Of course, there are some differences, such as the human mages standing on the towers and mingling with the archers.

The artillery has not been used by the Ghost Eye people for a long time, and a large part of the reason is probably due to these mages.

These guys are really useful and versatile.

A variety of auxiliary spells, plus strong attack spells.

A fireball streaked across the sky without deviating from its target and accurately hit a ratman warship. This fireball technique was too powerful for early naval battles.

The fireballs with terrifyingly high temperatures were enough to ignite most wooden warships. As long as there were enough mages, even the most powerful fleet would be destroyed in the rising flames after a round of salvos from close range.

It was extremely lucky, but it also became a constraint. The navigation level of the Ghost Eye people had not improved for many years, and instead more mages were assigned to warships.

More mages who could cast fireball were assigned to the warships.

This is certainly another route, and the magic warships are not necessarily inferior to the giant ships and cannons, but in these long years, the Ghost-Eyed people have not really taken the most critical step towards magic civilization.

Fireballs are not so effective against the strange-looking warships of the Skaven Western Expeditionary Force.

Although the Ratman's warships have many defects, strange designs, and are quite exhausting for the Ratman, one thing is determined by their material.

This all-metal bathtub is much stronger than a wooden battleship, and is not so afraid of fire. After all, it is truly all-metal casting, a strange product that is both advanced and backward.

The head-sized fireball landed on the all-metal warship, and it still had considerable terrifying power. The metal hull would still be melted wherever it was hit, but it was only limited to the place where it was hit.

No matter how unreliable the ratmen's warships are, they will not sink on the spot just because of a hole the size of a head.

Unless the fireball falls towards the bottom of the ratman warship at an extremely tricky angle.

The Skaven's warships had no partitions, only a spiral staircase that went down, which meant that the Skaven's warships were single-layered, and the damage to the bottom was a very serious problem. To be honest, relying on such a thing, Sheng Qi led the Western Expeditionary Force all the way across the sea, and even floated from the Half-Elf Hills to the main continent. Along the way, he still had thirteen ships left out of the fleet of thirty ships, which was also a miracle.

Starting from this fireball, the mages on the human fleet began an all-out attack.

One fireball after another was thrown by them and streaked across the sky.

There were even quite a few fireballs that streaked across the sky at a tricky angle and fell towards the bottom of the bathtub battleship.

This was a dangerous situation. With a successful hit, a fireball the size of a head would be enough to sink the ship and the ratmen on the ship into the sea to swim.

But it’s not a big problem. The rat people have a unique solution to such situations.

They have unique protection. Who says that a ship full of ratmen can't be a form of defense? The fireball hit the cabin of the ratman warship, and a ball of terrifying flames rose up.

The ratmen warriors wailed in the flames, but the fireballs falling towards the bottom of the ship were also intercepted.

The rats began to fight back, and finally the crossbows installed on the warships came into play. The rats once again proved their unique industrial capabilities.

In various unreliable situations, floating across the harsh sea, using a large number of gears, these huge crossbow carts with questionable safety did not fail at this moment.

Even the turning, moving, aiming, and first-round firing of the huge ballista were easily completed.

Under the command of Sheng Qi, facing the human warships rushing towards them, the ratman fleet chose to defend.

Thirteen ratman warships gathered together to form a circular defensive formation.

Turning the gears, the dying slave rats no longer provided kinetic energy for the rat warships, but began to use their strength to rotate the weapons on the warships.

A heavy metal pillar was raised high, and the center of gravity and stability of this bathtub warship became increasingly worrying. This was the special energy storage device that the Big Claw Priests had tinkered with in order to successfully use a group of slave rats to supply the two sets of equipment on the ship.

Raising the iron pillar high and locking it with gears is a process of storing energy. What follows is the movement of weapons on the ship and the rotation of the propeller at the bottom of the ship.

They can all rely on the high iron pillar to store energy, and in order to release the stored energy, they let the heavy iron pillar slowly fall down under the action of gravity and drive the gear to rotate, so that the stored energy can be released.

A peculiar and ingenious structure.

A primitive and not-so-primitive warship.

Huge crossbow arrows as thick as arms were continuously fired out. The lethality of these crossbow arrows was not low and they could even destroy the hull of human warships.

During the launch, a crossbow arrow hit the mast of a human warship that was cruising towards the rat people's warship quickly. In an instant, the thick mast made a sound of being unable to bear the weight and was broken by one blow. With a sharp sound, the tall mast fell down along with the sail mounted on it.

The hull began to shake violently.

The broken mast swept across the upper deck, and the human warship glided on the sea for a while before completely losing its movement.

The other human warships nimbly avoided the attack and continued to pounce on the rats.

Fireballs kept falling, and the soldiers gathered on the upper deck were ready to move. Thick metal crossbow arrows flew over their heads.

In this era when the human empire is falling apart, you can't expect its army to be professional and formal.

Most of the fleets also have an additional mission as pirates. The real controllers behind these fleets, the nobles, are not there to maintain these fleets for a living.

Looting was what they would have done, even if it was not ratmen that appeared before them at the moment, but something else.

They will still pounce on us brazenly.

The ratman's crossbow arrow hit a human warship below the waterline, and the thick crossbow arrow tore through the wooden board that was not strong enough.

The seawater began to pour in, but the human warships were still much more reasonable than the ratmen's weird-looking bathtubs.

The cabin was closed and the crew began to rescue the battleship. The speed of the battleship slowed down, but there was no risk of sinking.

On the other hand, in the continuous falling fireball attack, two fireballs luckily hit the same area. Due to the gap in the reactive armor, a rat warship on the periphery of the defense formation unfortunately leaked. The rats were helpless in this situation.

A ratman warship began to sink slowly.

The rats jumped into the sea one after another, and the bathtub battleship sank at a very fast speed.

The human fleet was about to engage in close combat with the rats, but as the rat warship sank, a huge black area suddenly appeared on the sea.

But they were ignored by humans. The large number of ratmen struggling on the sea were indeed not so conspicuous in this dim environment.

The carrying capacity of the rat warships may exceed humans' imagination. After all, there are no standards for the rats. It is their first time to sail, and many things are extremely confusing, including the number of rats carried on each warship.

In short.

It was based on the largest number. When it set sail, there was no more room for the ratmen to stand in the bathtub battleship. However, the battleship did not sink under the heavy load and was able to run. So there was no problem at all.

Engaging in a boarding battle with the rats may not be a wise decision, as each rat warship is truly filled with rats.

But humans obviously have never encountered such a situation.

As a human warship approached, the two ships approached each other under the wizard's tailwind spell, and hooks were cast at the rat warship one after another, and both sides anchored.

The human warriors who had been waiting on the deck for a long time began to cheer. The more experienced warriors took the lead and stepped forward on the rope, while behind them, a long wooden board was lifted up.

Soon, the first head-on battle between the two sides officially began.

In fact, the ratmen's warships do not have much advantage when facing human warships. Although these sailing warships are far less sturdy than the ratmen's cast metal warships, their speed and flexibility are much higher.

Wooden boards were laid across the gap between the two ships, leaving a path.

This was the first time that the Western Expeditionary Force encountered humans, and it was also the first battle that the Western Expeditionary Force encountered on this main continent after crossing the ocean.

Break out in a very sudden situation.

The rat people had no experience in dealing with such a situation.

A human warrior with a short axe on his waist stepped onto the ratman's bathtub battleship, with an indelible excitement on his face, until he saw this scene.

On the dark and strange round ship, countless ratmen raised their heads at the same time, and countless pairs of scarlet eyes appeared in front of them.

The excitement on his face suddenly froze in an instant.

The Western expeditionary forces, who had never fought a serious naval battle and had never had formal contact with humans, would be a little confused.

What are these guys?
Why did this group of sacrifices dare to charge towards them?

The ratmen of the Western Expeditionary Force had such doubts.

(End of this chapter)