Mythical Three Kingdoms

”Gong Yi, fall back to our own warships, stop attacking for now!” The moment Zhou Yu realized what was happening, he issued a new order to the Navy. The sailors under his command were indeed of excellent quality, but all the more precious; this was not the kind of battlefield where they should be squandered.

The combat instincts of the trusted aides led by Jiangh Qin were terrifyingly sharp. Although part of their strength was suppressed by the enemy’s Cloud Suppression, their inherent quality was still there, and they were not something the Kushan Marines could easily defeat.

However, as a commander who had long been tempered by war, Jiangh Qin was no fool. Though he did not instantly pinpoint the problem the way Zhou Yu had, he did know that the Elite Troops under his command were not to be consumed like this. He immediately withdrew back onto his own warship in accordance with Zhou Yu’s order.

After Zhou Yu’s Navy retreated back onto their own warships, the Kushan Soldiers decisively began a counterattack. A large number of sailors, led by the marines on board, launched a counter-assault toward Zhou Yu’s warships. Just as Zhou Yu had anticipated, once the Kushan sailors jumped onto his ships, they lost one layer of Cloud Qi blessing, becoming like ordinary Han Dynasty marines.

In this situation, where both sides still had blessings, the side with greater inherent strength would naturally be able to exert superior Combat Power. Zhou Yu’s Navy had all been carefully selected for this southern expedition; compared with the Kushan Marines, their quality was a cut above. Without Cloud Suppression, their absolute strength could firmly crush the Kushan.

[This won’t do. Once the other side discovers the crux of the issue, they’ll likely give up on boarding attacks, and our forces have no way of boarding their warships at all.] Zhou Yu thought grimly. [What on earth is that second-layer Cloud Qi blessing?]

Just then, an Arrow loosed by the Archers under Jiangh Qin’s command slammed straight into the Kushan Warship’s gunwale. Zhou Yu froze for a moment, as if he had vaguely sensed something.

[If it’s Reserved Cloud Qi stored by the warship itself, then the fragility of their ships becomes understandable. An Arrow biting three-tenths of an inch into the wood can serve as corroborating evidence for this guess. But if that’s the case, it means that given the right conditions, their ships can actually be shattered?]

Zhou Yu was stunned by his own speculation, almost dumbfounded. If a vessel could not provide protection, what meaning was there in building it?

”Everyone switch to the bilge-deck Siege Crossbow Machines!” Zhou Yu ordered on the spot. If his estimation was correct, then this was definitely the moment when the Kushan ships were at their most fragile.

At Zhou Yu’s command, the Han Army’s warships dragged out the spare Siege Crossbow Machines from the lower decks, quickly put them under tension, and launched a counterattack against the Kushan warships.

Just as Zhou Yu had anticipated, the Kushan Warships that had previously been able to easily withstand attacks from Heavy Siege Crossbow Machines now had their gunwales effortlessly pierced by those same Heavy Crossbow Machines.

”Concentrate your Crossbow Bolts and target their flagship!” Zhou Yu had already vaguely realized the fatal flaw of the Kushan Warships at this point, but he had no time to think it through more deeply.

Because if they closed the distance any further, then even if the Crossbow Mechanisms could pierce the opponent’s gunwales, they would not be able to inflict fatal damage on the enemy warships.

After all, Heavy Siege Crossbow Machines could not possibly fire in a plunging arc; firing flat at the enemy’s gunwales, even if they could punch through, would not necessarily cause a ship to sink.

With the first Crossbow Bolt perforating the hull of the Kushan flagship, dozens of massive Crossbow Bolts from the Han warships under Zhou Yu’s command followed in quick succession. The accuracy rate of Crossbow Mechanisms was abysmal against human targets, but against warships tens of meters long at such close range, hitting them was trivial.

Thus the warship struck by dozens of leg-thick Crossbow Bolts had its forward forecastle deck blasted apart, and a massive volume of seawater surged straight in.

”So it really is because of their Spiritual Talent that they directly overlooked their greatest weakness, huh?” Zhou Yu said with a cold laugh as he watched the clearly listing bow of the enemy flagship and heard the chaotic shouting.

He then unceremoniously ordered all Marines not yet engaged in close combat to use their Crossbow Mechanisms to attack every enemy warship already bogged down in the main engagement zone.

In fact, Zhou Yu’s assessment was correct. The enemy really had been influenced by their own Spiritual Talent. Whether it was abandoning the Kushan Navy’s own tactical Techniques in favor of using double-layer Cloud Qi suppression for close-quarters slaughter to crush Zhou Yu, or prematurely employing their decisive-battle Techniques later on, all of it had been affected by Zhou Yu’s Spiritual Talent.

In the past, Zhou Yu’s Spiritual Talent had always been used on opponents who possessed Spiritual Talents or Legion Talents themselves. Those people, whatever else could be said about them, had astonishing Spirit and Will. Even if Zhou Yu’s Spiritual Talent could interfere with their intelligence, it could not drag it down too severely.

This time, although his opponents were very capable, they had no means to protect themselves from Zhou Yu’s interference. Put simply, when Zhou Yu hacked away at their intelligence this time, they had no resistance whatsoever and were dragged straight down to the bottom by him in one go.

This was a major reason why the Kushan side had blundered again and again, to the point of exposing the greatest weakness of their own warships. One must know that the Kushan were not just fighting Zhou Yu’s small contingent; there were nearly a hundred thousand men on the front line aboard warships locked in combat with Gan Ning.

In other words, these nearly hundred thousand men, fighting back and forth with Gan Ning’s Pirate Group—who had been collectively empowered by a Legion Talent—using their decisive-battle Techniques, had, because of this one blunder, directly exposed their fatal weak point to Zhou Yu.