Mythical Three Kingdoms

After Lyu Bu made his move, the navy led by Gan Ning and Zhou Yu charged towards Malacca at full speed. The difference was that Gan Ning had a clear and definite target, while Zhou Yu seemed more like he was responding to moves as they came.

”Sakara, Cloud Qi acceleration!” Gan Ning roared the order, and with that command, the entire pirate crew started moving at an astonishing speed.

After fully activating the Legion’s Cloud Qi, just as Gan Ning had anticipated, within one quarter hour, Gan Ning saw the Kushan navy.

Almost simultaneously, the Kushan navy also spotted Gan Ning, followed by various alarms and commands amidst the water village set up by Kushan in Malacca.

”Contract defense, block in batches!” Qiu Lique’s adjutant Lochte ordered promptly upon the lookout discovering Gan Ning’s pirate crew. Although they didn’t know how many there were on the other side, and despite them just being a pirate crew, Lochte decided to take a defensive stance first.

As the adjutant of Qiu Lique, his strength wasn’t strong, but his talent in naval command was not inferior to Qiu Lique. Moreover, compared to Qiu Lique, he was calmer and more cautious.

[Could this be a conspiracy, perhaps? The Manifest Body of Mahesvara distracted all our strong warriors, and now suddenly a pirate crew wants to attack us. Although our strength is not something a pirate crew can covet, losing those generals would substantially increase our own losses.] Lochte, cautiously, found the idea creeping in that their Kushan had been plotted against upon seeing the pirates ferociously advancing over the horizon.

Soon, the lookout informed Gan Ning that the Kushan navy in Malacca swiftly spread out in batches to form defensive lines, but when they didn’t rush out, Gan Ning wasn’t too surprised. On the contrary, he had anticipated such a situation before.

If they deployed Lyu Bu because of a bunch of Inner Qi Manifestation generals, and the entire Kushan navy displayed substantially reduced capabilities, Gan Ning would have to reconsider whether they were laying an ambush.

After all, Inner Qi Manifestation represents morale more than anything else. The commanders in the command system might not have the strength of Inner Qi Manifestation, yet their ability to command large armies can even suppress those with Inner Qi Manifestation. After all, strength and command capability do not have an absolute correlation.

As an empire, if it lost its battle capability because of the departure of Inner Qi Manifestation generals, it would surely be a joke. Gan Ning, in collaboration with Lyu Bu, acted while Lyu Bu distracted generals with Inner Qi Manifestation. The aim was more about ensuring their commanding capabilities could be effectively utilized.

After all, without achieving the command level of a renowned general, ten or so Inner Qi Manifestation leading a legion thrust charge doesn’t even require much command capability—just an unthinking forward charge and mutual cooperation would be enough to elevate their morale to a certain peak while suppressing the enemy’s morale.

Therefore, in this battle, if the goal was to test his own command level, he absolutely couldn’t let those ten or so Inner Qi Manifestation be present. As for who commanded the Kushan navy in the absence of those ten Inner Qi Manifestation, Gan Ning didn’t care much. He only needed to know that the person left at the base, commanding the army, could certainly gain the recognition of this army’s Grand Commander.

In other words, the person commanding this army now, might well hold equal footing with Qiu Lique, and that was precisely the test Gan Ning required!

”Prepare the Legion’s Cloud Qi, charge in.” As he saw the opponent’s formations growing increasingly stringent, a cold smile appeared on Gan Ning’s face. The biggest difference between a naval and ground battle lay in that naval formations are inherently fragmented assemblies, which made them easier to dismantle.

During this year in Kushan, Gan Ning mainly focused on learning how to dismantle opponents’ formations and how to violently cut through them. The techniques taught by Mengg Kambu, in Gan Ning’s view, overly concerned themselves with preserving one’s own ships, and they were too slow.

Following Gan Ning’s command, a large number of pirate ships activated their Cloud Qi, with speed soaring dramatically. Among them, five warships almost entirely activated their Cloud Qi, maxing out their speed. They rushed towards the opponent’s battleships like arrows off the bowstring.

”Mobilize Cloud Qi, use seawater to intercept. Absolutely must not let them break through, Legion attack preparation, rear warships ready!” The commander whom Lochte placed on the frontline naturally couldn’t be an incompetent one. Seeing five pirate warships rushing as if they were arrows off the string, he instantly knew what the opponent’s target was.

Hence, he cursed the pirates under his breath while rapidly ordering Cloud Qi to stir the seawater, forming waves to obstruct the oncoming force and obstruct the pirates blocking the naval advancement path.

At the moment Gan Ning’s warships charged towards him, the first line of defense Vakas made his choice almost instantaneously. Five circles of ten-meter-high giant waves fiercely slammed toward those five pirate ships under the impetus of their own Cloud Qi, not aiming to kill the enemy, but only to curb the opponent’s terrifying speed.

These waves, which in a normal world seemed like natural disasters, collided with Gan Ning’s five rapidly advancing pirate ships. At that moment, a light blue Group Defense Formation directly materialized, again differing from the typical hemispherical Group Defense Formation of the Kushan navy.

The Group Defensive Formation manifested by Gan Ning this time resembled a spindle, and this spindle-shaped Group Defensive Formation did not distribute evenly. The foremost spindle tip defense was nearly materialized, while the defenses behind gradually dimmed.

The moment the giant wave hit the defensive formation, it was directly broken by the spindle tip—one of the techniques passed to Gan Ning by Mengg Kambu. This defensive formation, besides its strong frontal resistance, had another effect called specialized in breaking other defensive formations. However, for Gan Ning, this was merely a decoy.

Upon seeing Gan Ning’s Group Defensive Formation, Vakas on the first defense line could instantly grasp another use of this defensive formation based on his experience.

”Legion attack, guard ship lateral move!” Vakas ordered grimly. The opponent’s pirate’s grand command gave him a sense of familiarity. That customary Kushan academy technique, applied to his group, was also unmistakably applied to the opponent’s group.

In other words, the opponent was also naval born, and might well have been an elite among the navy. Yet, for some unknown reason, they turned into pirates. Such a person understands naval warfare and knows precisely how to counter every technique!

Ultimately, it came down to each side’s command capabilities. Unfortunately, Vakas now had noticed something troubling—the opponent could respond more swiftly, and addressed weaknesses more adequately, meaning under the same techniques, he was at a disadvantage!

With Vakas’ command, the Kushan navy on the first line of defense stabilized their formation, unleashing their Cloud Qi. A powerful legion attack was directly condensed, and the guard ships on both sides utilized Cloud Qi to turn and positioned themselves in front of the pirate warships charging ahead.