Dwargonia Vanguard Flotilla
The fog swallowed the world whole.
Inside the blinding white haze, sunlight degraded into a dull, choking glow. Visibility collapsed to barely thirty meters. Anything farther than that dissolved into vague silhouettes, and even those silhouettes disappeared after a few seconds.
Every ship in the Dwargonian vanguard crawled forward cautiously, their engines throttled low.
No one wanted to ram into their own fleet.
The commander's last order—advance at full speed—had never reached them. Their mana-communication systems were completely jammed, leaving every vessel drifting in operational silence.
Blind.
Deaf.
Isolated.
Exactly what the Ravendawn wanted.
"Sir… should we turn on our foglamp?" one officer asked carefully.
"You idiot," the commander snapped immediately. "If we do that, we'd be a lighthouse for the enemy! If we can't see them, they can't see us. That's how it works. We keep moving forward until we're out of this cursed fog."
He crossed his arms, projecting certainty.
Inside, his stomach was twisting into knots.
Then—
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The distant thunder rolled through the mist.
"Someone's firing…" an officer whispered.
Gunfire echoed somewhere ahead of them. For a moment, faint flashes of orange flickered through the fog—muzzle flashes briefly punching holes through the white haze.
But the sound was warped by the fog, bouncing in strange directions.
It was impossible to tell where it came from.
"One of our ships must've found a Ravendawn vessel," the commander said with a small snicker, clinging to the explanation as quickly as it appeared. "Maintain course. We'll break through this fog and regroup."
The ship continued creeping forward.
But the confidence on deck slowly began to crumble.
"DEBRIS AHEAD!"
Everyone leaned forward.
Through the mist, a dim orange glow flickered.
Fire.
As the ship drifted closer, the burning wreckage became clearer.
Not wooden debris.
Steel.
A torn hull section floated sideways in the water. A massive slab of twisted armor plating drifted nearby, still glowing from heat. Smaller fragments bumped gently against the ship's hull.
And between them—
Bodies.
Charred dwarf bodies.
One officer stepped closer to the railing, dread crawling up his spine.
"S-SIR!" the officer stammered. "It's—it's one of our own cruisers!"
"What—?" The commander's jaw slackened. "How the HELL does a steel cruiser get sunk by a goddamn sail ship!?"
Nobody answered.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—
Another burst of gunfire rattled through the fog.
"That's not our guns…" an officer whispered.
"And you finally noticed," the commander growled. "Listen to the rate of fire. None of our guns can shoot that fast."
"That's them." His eyes narrowed into the fog, "The Ravendawn."
"B-But how!?" the officer's voice trembled. "How can they see us when we can't even see past the bow?!"
The commander clenched his teeth.
He had no answer. None that he was willing to admit
---
Ravendawn Gunship Squadron
Meanwhile, within the Ravendawn formation—
There was silence. Disciplined silence.
The ship-mages had already stopped casting wind spells. Continuing now would scatter the fog.
Every crew member stayed perfectly still. Ears alert. Breaths controlled. Tension sat in their muscles, but fear did not. They had rehearsed this many times.
No shouting. Just quiet readiness.
Above the mast, a lookout crouched inside the crow's nest. But these were not ordinary lookout. Strapped to his head was a pair of Murican thermal goggles. Through them, the fog wasn't a wall—it was merely a thin, ghostly curtain.
Heat signatures glowed through the haze.
Enemies: large shapes.
Friendlies: slimmer silhouettes with narrow sail profiles.
The distinction was simple.
And right now, a very large heat signature was slowly drifting toward them.
Even through the fog, its massive heated hull burned brightly in thermal vision. Based on its course, the cruiser would slide past their starboard side in a few minutes.
He did not shout. Noise discipline was absolute. Fortunately, Ravendawn vessels operated almost silently—no rumbling engines, sails trimmed to reduce flapping, and crews trained to move without announcing every step.
The lookout tapped the Murican throat microphone attached to his collar and whispered into the walkie-talkie.
"Captain," he murmured, barely louder than a breath, "enemy contact approaching starboard side."
"Distance?" the captain whispered back immediately.
"Sixty."
"Understood." The captain calmly switched channels. "Gunners, prepare starboard battery. Distance, sixty meters."
Below deck, weapon crews quietly went to work.
All sixty-two Murican M3 37 mm anti-tank cannons were adjusted with careful precision. Movements were deliberate. No clanging metal. No loud commands. No boots stomping on the floorboards.
Barrels adjusted.
Breeches opened.
Shells prepared.
Beside each gunner, mage-crews knelt patiently, waiting for the signal from the gunnery sergeant.
Every eye in the compartment eventually settled on one person.
The sergeant.
A faint buzz came through his communication device. The order had arrived.
"Fuse to thirty seconds," the captain whispered through the line.
The gunnery sergeant raised his fist in the air. Then he flashed a simple hand signal.
Thirty seconds.
Immediately, the mage crews began their soft chanting. Each armor-piercing shell received a carefully timed delayed explosive enchantment.
Quiet voices.
Precise magic.
When the enchantments were complete, the weapon crews slid the shells into place.
The breeches snapped shut.
Above deck, the captain issued the final command.
"Fire."
The sergeant inhaled slowly.
Then he finally broke the silence.
"FIRE!"
It was the only moment anyone was allowed to be loud.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—
Sixty-two anti-tank cannons erupted simultaneously.
Flames burst from the muzzles, briefly lighting the fog from within like lightning trapped inside a cloud. The armor-piercing rounds vanished into the haze long before the thunder of the guns faded.
A second passed.
Then—
THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK—
Metal striking metal. Dozens of impacts hammered into the unseen cruiser.
And then—
KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM—
The enchanted shells detonated inside the Dwargonian hull.
Explosions tore through internal compartments, shredding machinery, rupturing bulkheads, and igniting anything remotely flammable. Fires bloomed deep within the ship's interior—far too many, and far too deep, for the crew to extinguish.
The cruiser shuddered as a chain reaction of internal blasts ripped through it. Flames erupted from vents, seams, and shattered armor plates.
One volley.
One steel ship crippled beyond repair.
Another example of Admiral Lorenzo's favorite doctrine: the elegant marriage between Murican engineering and Ravendawn magic.
"Hit confirmed," the Ravendawn captain whispered calmly.
A short pause.
"Helmsman, relocate. We hunt another."
"Aye, captain."
The ship shifted course quietly, sails adjusting just enough to carry them deeper into the fog.
Silent as a phantom.
Behind them, the crippled Dwargonian cruiser burned, its crew screaming somewhere inside the mist.
And the deadly game of maritime hide-and-seek continued.
---
Dwargonia Vanguard Flotilla
The commander's bridge felt like a tomb.
No one spoke unless they had to. Every officer gripped their stations a little too tightly. Hands trembled. Sweat dripped quietly onto metal consoles.
They had already passed two more burning Dwargonian ships drifting in the fog. And several times now, the same terrifying pattern repeated itself.
Ravendawn guns firing.
Dwargonian guns… silent.
"Sir…" an officer whispered. His voice cracked halfway through the word. "We're being hunted."
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—
Another burst of gunfire echoed through the fog. This time from the port side.
The commander's fingers tightened around the armrest of his chair.
"Damn them…" he muttered under his breath. "Damn those ghosts…"
Then suddenly—
"SIR! ONE OF OUR SHIPS IS TURNING ON ITS FOGLAMP!"
The entire bridge looked toward the fog.
A bright yellow beam appeared through the haze. Like a desperate lighthouse inside a graveyard.
"Which idiot captain—!?"
But before the commander could finish shouting, another beam appeared. Another Dwargonian ship had activated its foglamp.
Then another.
And another.
Panic spread quietly across the fleet. In clear weather, discipline held fleets together. In blindness, discipline cracked. Fear traveled faster than orders.
Soon several Dwargonian steel warships were projecting bright pillars of yellow light into the fog, desperately searching for anything ahead of them.
Friend.
Enemy.
Anything at all.
Fortunately for the Murican, this fear was towards human, not demonic one—so at least it didn't trigger the goddess virus inside them to spiral into frenzy.
Through one of the widening beams of light, a shape appeared. A sail ship.
An unfortunate Ravendawn 124-gun warship had drifted just close enough to be illuminated.
"There! A sail ship! Gunner! AIM!"
Dwarven eyes widened the moment they saw the wooden hull.
"GUNNERS! AIM AT THAT SAIL SHIP!"
"READY!"
"FIRE!"
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—
Four Dwargonian cannons roared.
KABOOOM!
One struck the Ravendawn ship's hull directly. Fire and splintered wood exploded from its side as the impact ripped through the outer structure.
For the first time in minutes, dwarven voices erupted.
"YEAAAH!! WE GOT THEM!"
Cheers spread across the nearby ships. Finally a hit.
But luck, unfortunately, was not a renewable resource. The other Ravendawn ships did not repeat that mistake as they remained farther away.
Far enough that the Dwargonian foglamps could not illuminate them.
Yet their own vision—enhanced by Murican technology—could see the glowing beams perfectly.
The Dwargonian fleet had solved their blindness by turning themselves into excellent targets.