First Light of a New Age

Chapter 25: Too Big!

Kingdom of High Tarxa/Austronesian Empire, Somewhere In The Ocean, On The Borders Of The Storm, Entrance To The Exclusive Economic Zone Of The Austronesian Empire

First Year Of God, First Day, First Five Days, First Month

The sky was darkening as the light from the sun got shrouded by the great storm. Before the light had faded out and only strands of lights were left, the time was already in the late afternoon, which means night is almost closing in. They have only just entered the storm and it struck the young maiden with incredible fear.

This maiden was none other than Floria Melian Shelberry, the monarch of the Kingdom of High Tarxa. Though she might not be widely recognized, she was undeniably the one and only leader of her nation. She was now in deep thought as she tried to find where the source of mana that gathered earlier came from.

She ruled out the possibility of it being a coincidence. As sometimes during a prolonged period, mana accumulates into the surrounding because it wasn't being used, which leads to it becoming too abundant. Thus, the result is an enormous explosion that will ensue where it is most concentrated at. To this day, they still haven't figured out why such a thing happens when too much mana is concentrated in one place.

But such power from the explosion is equivalent to a Tier 10 or beyond that, but the mana gathered seemed not enough for such a magnitude.

But there is another possibility, is that a magic artifact was used, and no doubt that someone had deliberately orchestrated the event.

Which means that it could only mean one thing, and that is an assassination attempt towards her. Floria wasn't sure if such high-tier magic existed in this region, as neither she nor the inhabitants could cast such a level of magic. However, using certain magic artifacts is possible even for ordinary mages to achieve this feat. Not only that, if the magic was just tampered with and was attracted to gather in one place just to activate the magic artifact, then that could mean that she would have died by a mere coincidence and it will not poke the wrath of the Elven goddess. A perfect way to ascend the throne.

The only plausible culprit was her brother Acheron had done it. Now that she had lost thousands of sailors and a handful of dozens of ships, it is quite probable now that he had returned home to spread lies to the masses. So that would mean even if she was the legitimate ruler of the nation, she would be quickly overthrown, killed and possibly defiled.

Just thinking about the horror of the things she could suffer made her stomach churn. She couldn't return home for the meantime, she needs to find allies. But how could she find allies when the race that she attacked captured her? Simple, she'd make them her allies! After all, she is the legitimate ruler of her kingdom, and she still has a considerable amount of power, though she may be, in fact as of now a government in exile in the eyes of other nations. The battle for legitimacy would soon ensue.

Though there are still a few problems, how could she ask the humans for help when they speak a language she doesn't know of or in fact have never heard of it's existence? Another problem is the fact that they treated humans as slaves. Will humans ever help their adversaries? Wouldn't they just enjoy the suffering of her people? Not to mention the fact that the Elven race also considers those who don't have any mana in them as slaves? Even if it's their own kind?

The last strands of light were thinning out, and the humans dressed in white were moving the Elven captives inside the ship. This initially sparked fear along the Elves, that is also partly because of men appearing with iron sticks in their hands. It resembles a musket, but it is much shorter and more sophisticated. So they figured out that it was a much stronger and possibly more accurate musket than they possessed.

The Elves also found how large the cannons on the ship were, that they couldn't see anyone turning it, as if it was turning by itself. It was no wonder how they could decimate their ironclads so easily. They were also curious about how thrse cannons were reloaded or how large the cannonballs they fired.

Upon entering the warship, Melian and the Elven sailors were utterly terrified by what they saw. Everything was made of some kind of metal, there isn't a place where there wasn't any metal. This meant that most magic will be terribly ineffective here, as nearly all classes of magic were only from nature. One would require physical enhanced magic or a more advanced form of magic just to fight inside of this ship.

It seemed as though the ship was designed specifically to counter mages. Perhaps this was why the humans appeared so lax against them, they had a trump card against mages.

There are four basic forms of elemental magic that every mage could use: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. While other forms of magic are in an advanced area where it would require a tedious amount of work, study and effort.

Which means, for the average magician, this entire ship is bad news.

Melian, whilst being on a chair with a wheel, was led along with the other Elven sailors into a room. They found that there were beds inside of it. However, the humans dressed in white firstly placed the injured on the beds, as if they don't have a sense of status and hierarchy.

She was given a bed near a window and was served food and water. Upon tasting the food, she found that it was immensely delicious, unlike anything she had ever tasted such things before. She wondered what kind of stuff they have put it with. Furthermore, she doesn't recognise any of the ingredients when she uses her magic to analyze in great detail.

Taking a glimpse toward her people, she saw that they were ravaging the food as if they hadn't eaten in days. Well, they wouldn't poison the food if they were willing to go as far as to give accommodations and treatment to them, so she decided to place her trust in them, albeit cautiously.

While eating, Melian accidentally glanced out the window and saw something which struck fear into the heart and soul of people in this world.

"I-Is that a ship? No, it is too large for it to be a ship! But if it was a ship, how could they support such a thing? It was too large, and how could they move it? It could span over a hundred, no, possibly over two hundred meters. And those large tubes on the deck..." Melian silently muttered.

Then, she realized something. "Are those cannons!? They are so huge that they could possibly slain a Sea Dragon with little effort."

Overwhelmed, Melian struggled to think as she almost fainted from shock, but a woman dressed in white comforted her. The woman doesn't even know why the young maiden was so distressed and acting like this. When the woman looked at the other Elven people, she noticed they all had the same expression. Curious, she glanced in the direction they were looking.

"So that's why they had that kind of expression. It's the battleship Teuku Umar," whispered the woman, a note of pride in her voice as she gazed at the massive 300 meter size ship.