Chapter 122: A Duel to the Death 3

Chapter 122 – A Duel to the Death 3
With the help of the tilting of the ship caused by the undulating waves, the Hope’s second round of gunfire hit the pirate ship’s position near the waterline, causing its bilge to start taking in water.

“Hooray!” A cheer went up on the Hope as it continued to prepare for the third round of shelling.

The pirate ship in the lead, on the other hand, was as devastated as ever, and its captain shouted, “Plug the holes!”

The men in the bilge tried everything they could to plug the holes in the hold, but with the third round of cannon fire from the Arda Navy, it was clear that the job was no longer possible.

The opening in the waterline grew wider and wider as the seawater poured in, and the bilge became more and more full of water.

The captain himself went down to see how things were going, and the situation was beyond repair. The Hope had a stroke of luck when a third salvo hit again near the waterline.

The pirate captain, with a look of resignation, glared hatefully at the Hope, and helplessly issued an order: send a signal to the nearby ships, we have to give up this ship.

……

The encounter with the lead pirate ship caused confusion among the ships behind, Gaden looked incredulous, “What the hell is going on?”

Before even touching the enemy fleet, a ship on his side was finished.

He held up a large megaphone and yelled, “Pick up speed, pick up speed! Stick up and jump on their ship!”

The pirate leader believed that no matter what strange long-range attacks the Alda Navy had, as long as they started a gangway battle, the warriors under his command would be able to slaughter the other side in a very short period of time, and the battle would be as easy as it was when they had annexed the other pirate groups.

The second pirate ship approached the lead ship that was about to sink, and the pirates from the first ship jumped on board.

The Hope immediately opened fire on the pirate ship coming to the rescue, unfortunately this time only one of the cannons hit the upper deck.

Although only one cannonball hit, it still caused a great battle, the cannonball took away the lives of several pirates and also intended the not-so-thick mast.

The Hope’s excellent performance managed to pull in a lot of hate, and the following 3 pirate ships lunged at him.

Naval Commander Austin, who was personally commanding the battle, put down his binoculars and gave an order to the messenger: “Notify all ships to support the Hope, but try not to affect the play of the guns on the Hope.”

Under this order, the other naval warships accelerated their speed and encircled the pirate ships.

“Reload the grapeshot!” “Prepare the cyclone guns! Ahem!”

Seeing the enemy ship approaching, the gunnery officer on the Hope gave orders in succession, and the deck was filled with smoke and the pungent odor of burning gunpowder, choking him into coughing.

“Ah! “Just as the gunnery officer was trying to observe the enemy ship’s form through the smoke, a heartbreaking scream suddenly came from beside him, it turned out to be a member of the gun crew who had shoved a new gunpowder packet into the barrel without cleaning it out in a panic, and the residual fire inside the barrel ignited the newly loaded gunpowder, which was sprayed onto the face of the loader.

This was the first time the men, including the gunnery officer, had encountered such an accident, and they scrambled to drag the wounded loader aside and examine his injuries.

“What are you guys doing? Get back to your gun positions and prepare to fire!”

Captain Quirk noticed the situation over here, and he immediately called for the injured man to be dragged to the cabin, ordered the gunners to return to their positions immediately, and sternly instructed them, “Strictly follow the steps of artillery firing.”

The gunners quickly took their positions, and by now the nearest pirate ship had closed in to a little more than 10 meters, and the gunnery officer yelled, “Fire!” The four 6-pounders and two cycloramas sent out deadly grapeshot, and a storm of metal rained down on the pirate ship.

The crowd of pirates who were preparing for a gangway battle only saw a piece of blackness flying rapidly towards their side, and then a large number of people on the deck instantly fell.

A scene of tragedy was staged on the deck, the pirate ship was overturned, and even the hull of the ship was hit with many holes and eyes, screams and groans filled the entire deck.

“My arm! My arm!” A various pirates looked at their right arm with a face full of horror, this arm had just been directly penetrated by a projectile, and now it no longer had any other sensation other than pain.

Because of the effect of that mysterious drug that he had just taken, his heartbeat was faster than usual, and the blood flow in his body was also faster than in its usual state, which caused the wound in his arm to burst out with blood, literally spewing out.

“No …… no …… don’t do this ……” The fear of death suppressed the sharp pain in his right arm, and the pirate, while Panicked babbling, while using his trembling left hand to tightly cover the wound, but to no avail, no matter how hard he tried to cover it, the blood still couldn’t stop gushing out from between his fingers.

Soon, his brain began to spin, his eyes began to blacken, and his body was unsteady. A wave struck causing the ship to sway slightly, and the pirate fell to the deck with a thud, never getting up again.

There were many others like him on the deck, but all of the more serious injuries were not bleeding profusely, and in the end, their moans and wails gradually subsided, and they lost their breath.

“Get down! All get down!” Among the remaining lucky ones who were not injured, some smart ones loudly reminded their companions to lie down on the deck to avoid the shelling of the Arda Navy.

The remaining two pirate ships that lunged towards the Hope saw the tragic situation of their companions in front of them and all of a sudden slowed down, as if they were afraid that they would suffer the same fate.

Because of the effect of the drug and the frenzy of the brain was coldly poured a pot of cold water called reality, the captains of the two ships quickly became calm, carefully weighing up whether to take the risk to provoke that strange ship.

“What are they doing?” Gaden judged the indecision of the two ships in front of him, and his face became scowling.

“Don’t they realize? The other side has powerful long-range attacks, stopping can only lead to passive beatings!”

He stomped his feet vigorously on the deck with hatred, probably because of the drugs he had taken, he had lost his usual calmness, and felt irritated all over whenever he encountered a sudden situation that was not in line with his expectations and unfavorable to him.

Next to him, one of the various leaders suggested with two red eyes, “Chief Gaden, these newcomers are just unreliable, let’s go up there ourselves and slaughter the Blue Streak Dogs cleanly before taking our time to clean up this bunch of two-biters.”

The four ships at the very front came from the three small gangs that the Loach Gang had recently annexed or came to join on their own, in order to test their loyalty and level of combat power, this operation was arranged at the very front, after all, even if the main force of the navy was gone, it was estimated that it would still leave behind a little bit of troops to guard the lair, and it would still need some stragglers to fight at the forefront.

I did not expect to run into the Navy’s main force.

Gaden clenched his fists hard and hit hard on top of the mast, the not-so-thick mast of the paddle sailing ship was shaken by his hit.

“Just! Let’s attack those paddleboats while that monstrous ship is attracted to those junks in front of it.”

The six pirate ships adjusted their direction slightly and lunged towards the other ships of the navy.

Thank you for the reward from my friend “Never Least”!

(End of chapter)