Chapter LIV: Hunt for the War Knife III

Demonic Wildlands

Month of the Tortoise 33, 172 ,328 DE

Darkness cloaks the forest, and the moon has yet to rise above the horizon. Six of the wandering stars, which Old Man Jones says are really moons, tiny moons compared to the big one, brighten the night sky, but at least, the night is darker than if the big moon was up.

The superstructures of the two moored airships still rise above the ruins around them. Jaanfaag's airship had disappeared into the interior of the mountaintop in the morning, and we have yet to see it leave. It might have left on a course outside out line of sight, but if it did we can do nothing about it. With the other two airships moored on the mountaintop, I am willing to gamble on the bitch aunt or a clue to her whereabouts being on this mountain.

"Brigitte, take us east and climb to an altitude higher than the mountaintop."

"Aye, Master."

After raising the anchors, while accelerating, Brigitte takes the Silver Princes through a smooth turn, and we begin to gain altitude. Despite our the acceleration and rapid ascent, I barely need to adjust my muscle tension to maintain perfect balance. A common human would have not trouble standing or walking on the Silver Princess ' decks.

I can pilot the Silver Princess , but Brigitte's handles her far more smoothly than I do. Her experience clearly shows through. That shitty old man cares less about their lives or deaths or human than I do, but he went out of his way to tell this human female to serve me. He had his reasons. Is it just for her to pilot my airship? Or is there more to it? Only time will tell.

My eyes shift to Vorn. Everything has been changing since that smug cat showed up. Outside of Old Man Jones and Mika-chan, Hoshi was the only human to honestly act friendly toward me. I interacted with them as little as possible. Now, my acrimonious dealings with the noble trash of Shizukana Gake exploded into open battle. Otoko no Kage, who never leaves the shadows, showed himself in front of me. I have the crazy girl, who throws herself at me every chance she gets. This mercenary Cultivator has sworn and Oath that will bind her to me until her death. What will I find atop this mountain? How many more entanglements with humans will I have to deal with?

Before we reach the height of the mountaintop, the moon has risen above the horizon. If anyone on the mounting looks in our direction, the Silver Princess will stand out clearly against the night sky. Conversely, with the moon still low in southeastern sky, much of the mountaintop like hidden in shadows. Even with my visual acuity, the stark difference between moonlight and shadows makes it harder to pick out the details among the ruins. Steady or flicking lights illuminate the windows of many of the partially ruined buildings, but if anything, they add to the difficulty in getting a clear picture of the condition mountaintop. It would be easier for me to see clearly if the entire mountain was in darkness.

The superstructures of four airships rise above the surrounding ruing, but except for Jaanfaag's uniquely designed airship, I cannot the others. By their huge size, two should be transports, but the quest is the last.

"Is that small airship the War Knife ?" Vorn's question cut into my silent deliberations.

"It could be, but I don't know. The gondola section is hidden by the ruins, and I have never seen it form above, so I can't say for sure."

I glance over my shoulder. "Brigette?"

While holding the airship's wheels, she look in the direction of the mountaintop but shakes her head. "We're too far away. I can't see it clearly."

"Does Jaanfaag's airship have any hidden cannons?"

Vorn shakes his head. "It's supposed to be unarmed. It's a yacht not a warship."

The transports at the mining compound were both unarmed, and I cannot remember ever seeing an armed transport. Even if the owners of transport, include armed Cultivators among their crews, they do not waste valuable cargo tonnage on cannons. I have no reason to assume these two will be any different.

Before we can do anything, the smaller airship takes off. It looks like we have been spotted. I was hoping to be dropped in a part of the mountaintop with no one around so I could gather information before we destroy anything.

"That's the War Knife !"

"Brigitte, take us in. We'll sink that War Knife first."

"Aye, Master."

Moving to the new control panel installed by Old Man Jones, I place my hand on a crystal the size of an apple. By focusing my awareness into the crystal, I sense the array of sigils that I inscribed onto the superstructure plates. Old Man Jones ran a half=dozen cables form the crystal to different location on the superstructure, and I channel Trinity through the crystal and cables to the sigils. It takes perhaps ten or so seconds, but once the entire array activates, the sigils draw on the ambient Trinity in the world around them to remain active.

Under Brigitte's smooth handling, the Silver Princess rapidly accelerates, but her speed levels out at about a hundred kilometers an hour, only two-thirds of her top speed.

When I glance at Brigitte, she smiles confidently, but her scent carries an odd mix of odors. Humans commonly give off mixed odd mixes of pheromones when they are being duplicitous or actively scheming. It is not surprising. Human females always have the fingers in multiple plots and schemes. The deviousness of the average human females makes the most twisted human male look blunt and straightforward. Brigitte probably has some surprises up her sleeve.

Placing my hand on another crystal on the new control panel, I channel Mana into it to activate it, and an image of the mountaintop appears in the air above the controls. A crystal mounted on the cannon takes the image from in front of it and transmits it to a crystal in the control panel, which projects it into the air. The crystal on the cannon matches was installed to take its image from the cannon's line of fire. It was installed in a device that has a cross hair marking the center point of the image and measures the distance to the object it is focused on.

The War Masters called this a remote viewer. Old Man Jones calls it a holographic camera. The words do not exist in any language I know; they come from a language spoken on the shitty old man's original world. The human living on the Great Plateau have no name for it since they have no concept of this type of technology. This holographic camera is something I never would have thought of, and the way Old Man Jones knew to make it shows how important experience can be.

The third and fourth crystals in the control panel connects to a Mana conversion motors. One spins the turret on its ring mount. The other lowers and raise the angle of the cannon. A fourth crystal controls the firing of the cannon. With the crystals Old Man Jones used, Yuan Qi should work with it, as well. I think. The only real weakness to the system is that the magazines for the cannon need to be manually changed.

"Hey, smug cat. Go to the armory. You'll have to change the cannons magazines."

Vorn frowns at me. "I'm a better shot than you. Why don't you change the magazines?"

"I designed and built the cannon."

"Grandmaster Jones built that control system."

"He built it to work with Mana, not your bastardized Yuan Qi."

"It works just fine with Yuan Qi. We tested it to be sure."

"It's my cannon. I shoot it first. You can play with it some other time."

"Are they children fighting over a toy?" Despite the rhetorical tone of her question and her blank expression, Brigitte's voice still rises over Vorn's or my own.

I stare coldly at Vorn. "It's my toy. I play with it first. Go play loader!"

With its current setup, the Silver Princess should really have a crew of five at a minimum. Ten to fifteen would be ideal. That would allow for running multiple shifts, allowing part of the crew to rest, while others are on watch.

"Try to stay above the War Knife's altitude"

Brigitte glances at me out of the corner of her eye. "Aye, Master."

Using the control crystals, I center the cross hair on the nose of the oncoming War Knife .

Boom!

As soon as the shell leaves the barrel, I can tell it will miss. In just a couple seconds, it passes under the War Knife's gondola. The drop rate on the shells is higher than I predicted. I adjust my aim, but before I can fire, the muzzle flash from the War Knife's bow cannon fills the holographic image.

Brigitte angles the Silver Princess' nose slightly higher and slides the steam engines control to its maximum speed. The War Knifes shot misses us by a larger margin than I missed them.

After waiting a few seconds for a better angle of fire on the War Knife , I focus the cross hairs on the nose once more and fire. The War Knife immediately starts to turn to its port, but this shell hits its superstructure squarely, about a quarter of its length behind the nose.

The shell's explosion leaves a hole in the superstructure, but the damage is not as much as I had hoped. The War Knife was built as a warship. While the superstructure is covered in plywood and chain-mesh armor like the Silver Princess originally was, the materials used on the War Knife are much thick and stronger. If they had not tried to avoid my fire, the shot would have hit farther from the center line. The War Knife's armor might even have deflected most of the shrapnel.

As the War Knife continues to turn, three gun ports open in the side of her gondola section, revealing the muzzles of more cannon. With a distance of more than three kilometers still between us, the muzzles of the cannon flash.

Brigitte spins the wheel hard, and the Silver Princess banks away from the War Knife . Two of the shells miss completely, but the third hammers into the superstructure near the nose.

Boom!

In addition to the lurid red of the exploding shell, silvery light illuminates the night. The Silver Princess shudders, but placing my hand on the crystal connected to the Ehrbaum Series sigils, I do not sense any damage to them. Even though no damage was done, I pour a load of my Trinity into the crystal to strengthen the sigils. While they constantly draw on the ambient Trinity, the extra Trinity that I provide will only make them more effective.

While frowning, I glance at the outer bulkhead of the bridge. Old Man Jones used his skills to make changes to the gondola section, but I do not know how strong the armor has become. He said that if we face a Martial Lord in the Silver Princess, we will lose. Does that mean the gondola section can handle anything below the destructive output of a Martial Lord?

"Take us past her. I want to go after the other airships before they launch."

With a disapproving frown, Brigitte turns her head to look at me. "Aye, Master."

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