Three airships—one large and two small—arrived above a certain stretch of sea.
Anbaixiu stood at the prow, gazing out across the endless sea, and then gestured behind him.
The brothers Hares and Hastings immediately understood what Anbaixiu meant. After a flurry of activity at the control consoles, the lower compartments of the three airships opened, and a deluge of minute black specks rained down into the water.
These were all Small Fry Mark I undead, fresh off the factory line, now being dumped straight into the ocean.
The bone plates of Anbaixiu's face twitched faintly. With this single drop, three million gold coins had been tossed away.
It was not merely the manufacturing cost, but also the price of transferring them via teleportation arrays—the transport fees were by far the steepest expense.
Yet there was no alternative; Anbaixiu's long-range supply lines were not fully established, so seeing this war through smoothly required relying on such costly spatial teleportation.
Heartache was heartache, but that was war; how could one win without spending money?
The first batch of Small Fry undead was now deployed. Under Anbaixiu's control, they dispersed in all directions, steadily scouting the waters.
Naval warfare was three-dimensional, making "air superiority" paramount. All sea races fought to occupy the waters closest to the surface, as doing so drastically reduced the angles from which they could be attacked, while allowing many of their own strikes to leverage gravity.
Yet no matter how close to the surface they got, they remained submerged; very few among the aquatic races could fly.
Anbaixiu was entirely different: his airships occupied the space above the sea's surface.
This was Anbaixiu's advantage. If anything went awry, he could simply dust his hands off and leave; an altitude of a hundred meters was an insurmountable chasm to the sea-dwellers.
Hastings reported, "Master, the Small Fry Mark Is have all been deployed. No enemies encountered for the moment."
Anbaixiu nodded and said, "Begin deploying the observation pods and Guardians."
The three airships opened their bays once more. Over a dozen small submersibles were dropped into the sea, followed by over a dozen skeletal monsters resembling octopuses.
As these objects plunged into the ocean, the magic mirror before Anbaixiu opened over a dozen feeds, displaying real-time communications with others alongside views from the ocean depths.
Addressing the magic mirror, Anbaixiu said, "Ange Watson, as the commander for this battle, you should already be clear on the operational objectives?"
On the other side of the mirror, Ange Watson straightened his collar and said confidently, "Rest assured, victory in this battle is certain!"
With that, Ange Watson turned his attention to the undersea feeds on the magic mirror.
These feeds came directly from the submersibles Anbaixiu had just released. There were fifteen submersibles in total, all equipped with magic mirrors of various configurations that responded to voice commands, as well as crystal lenses that could zoom in and out to adjust the field of vision.
This placed exceptionally high demands on the commander's multitasking.
Anbaixiu knew he lacked the skill to manage fifteen feeds at once, and even Ange Watson could not do it alone. He could only handle nine, dividing the remaining six among three others.
The tieflings took two, the elves took two, and the remaining two were handled by the brothers Alan and Cade.
Through Anbaixiu's sensory link, the Small Fry undead formed up around the submersible monitors in distinct formations, advancing swiftly toward their designated targets.
This was the territory of the sahuagin. With moderate water temperatures and a sweeping ocean current, it enjoyed an abundance of oxygen and food, along with excellent illumination and living conditions.
The sahuagin had claimed this underwater realm at first glance, turning a radius of eighty kilometers into their living territory.
This was Anbaixiu's first objective. If he could successfully wipe out the sahuagin here, it would conveniently put pressure on their neighbors, the kuo-toa and the ixitxachitl.
Anbaixiu did not mind fighting on multiple fronts; the more enemies died, the greater the advantage swung to the undead.
The Small Fry legion entered stealth, yet their pace did not slacken. Before long, they spotted sahuagin figures.
Having deployed his forces directly from above the area, Anbaixiu had easily bypassed the sahuagin's outer sentries. Thus, when the Small Fry legion drew near, many sahuagin failed to react in time.
In truth, they could not have reacted even if they tried. Despite spending their entire lives in the sea, they had never seen strange fish no bigger than a finger.
Not until the Small Fry legion accelerated, their propulsion jets tracing thousands of white lines across the seabed, did shrieks of agony erupt from the sahuagin.
"Alan, have your unit flank from the south to cut off the fleeing enemies and delay their calls for reinforcements as much as possible!"
"Cade, dive to the seabed and weave through their formation! Don't let them pull back to regroup!"
"You two tiefling idiots, stop thinking only about grabbing glory! Did I tell you to charge? Pull your forces back immediately! Didn't you see enemies coming from the south? Do you want to get wiped out?!"
"Elven friends, maintain free maneuverability, but do not push too deep into the fray. I anticipate sahuagin reinforcements will arrive shortly. If we haven't finished off this group in time, we'll need you to help buy us time."
...
Methodically issuing command after command, Ange Watson continually fine-tuned the positions and viewing distances of the submersible cameras. Though he had simulated this countless times in the dreamscape, excitement still surged through him.
He had never commanded a battle like this before. Separated by thousands of li, staying in the comfort of home while directing troops to wipe out the enemy—could this even be called warfare? It was practically a one-sided slaughter.
In past battles, it was extraordinarily difficult for a commander to retain control over the entire field once fighting broke out, unless one could find an exceptionally high vantage point with wide visibility overlooking the combat zone.
Most of the time, plans and rules were set beforehand, and during the battle, everyone stuck to the script; adapting on the fly was nearly impossible.
Even if one wanted to adapt, the time it took for an order to leave the commander's lips and reach the ears of front-line soldiers was far too long.
Thus, once combat began, shifting formations mid-battle was impossible for any but the most elite forces. Any careless improvisation would only throw one's own ranks into chaos; ordinary soldiers could not process rapid changes, and contradictory orders would leave them bewildered. In Ryan, only the elite Paladin Corps could react dynamically on the field, with paladin commanders authorized to adjust operational objectives based on situational developments.
Even then, they could not see the battlefield as a whole, forced to rely purely on experience and intuition.
Ange Watson, however, was in a completely different position. He could see the entire battlefield in real time. The live feed of the magic mirror was staggering—it was just like conducting a tabletop wargame over a map.
And Anbaixiu's undead forces were even more terrifying. When it came to absolute obedience and discipline, even paladins could not match the undead.
Paladins had emotions, whereas undead had none. Ange Watson would never have the heart to order paladins on a suicide charge; even if it yielded victory, excessive paladin casualties would make it a pyrrhic one.
With the undead, however, it did not matter. Anbaixiu had literally named these undead "Small Fry"—why bother sparing them?
Under Ange Watson's command, the undead moved like an agile school of fish, dissecting and devouring the sahuagin. Morale among the several thousand sahuagin shattered in short order, and they broke into a frantic, disorderly rout.
Ange Watson quickly came to a conclusion: this was not the sahuagin's main force. Even if every member of the sahuagin race was nominally a warrior, there were still gradations of strength.
The group before them seemed more like civilians and reserves; they lacked proper weaponry and did not even have giant sharks, a staple unit of any real sahuagin army.
Yet Ange Watson showed no mercy. Raised in the most traditional Ryanite education, he viewed non-human races as subhuman.
The Small Fry legion mobilized once more, slaughtering every last sahuagin with ruthless efficiency.
Blood and virulent venom diffused through the sea, carpeting the ocean floor with sahuagin corpses.
A careful tally of casualties showed approximately three thousand enemies slain against a loss of over eight thousand Small Fry, while only a single observation submersible was destroyed.
This was far better than Ange Watson had anticipated. The Small Fry Mark I was, after all, an expendable munition, essentially equivalent to an enchanted arrow. Averaging under three arrows per kill was almost unbelievable on any battlefield.
Of course, the Small Fry did not possess such pinpoint single-strike accuracy. Even with built-in tracking and homing, the hit rate on an initial dash was under ten percent. However, a Small Fry Mark I could boost up to eight times; if it missed on the first pass, it could make several more attempts, which produced an apparently sky-high hit rate.
Furthermore, the Small Fry Mark I possessed a wide-area toxic discharge. Although the venom could only be released once, its lethal radius exceeded five meters. Even at a greater distance, inhaling the venomous seawater induced paralysis and convulsions, neutralizing the enemy's combat capability.
The reason losses had been so heavy was purely due to excessive redundant saturation attacks at the battle's opening.
A single sahuagin would often be impaled by two or more Small Fry Mark Is, sometimes even more, while nearby comrades who went unhit by projectiles were simply poisoned to death in the fallout.
In the chaos of war, not even the greatest general could micromanage the trajectory of every single fish. With the Small Fry legion lacking individual intellect when carrying out orders, such wasted firepower was inevitable.
As for the submersibles, being far larger than the Small Fry and scattered across the battlefield, they were hard for the sahuagin to miss. The sahuagin were not fools; one look told them the Small Fry were expendable munitions while the larger craft were the true command assets.
Thus, some sahuagin summoned the courage to launch suicidal charges, assailing seven submersibles in total.
Yet in the end, only one suffered damage, because Anbaixiu had dropped not only the Small Fry legion into the ocean, but also specialized defensive undead: the Guardians.
These skeletal monsters resembling octopuses possessed eighteen tentacles. They had only a single capability: continuously firing specialized bone bullets from their tentacles, every bullet loaded with bone-colonizing virus.
This invention from the City of Alchemy could cause bones to proliferate uncontrollably in a short span.
Any struck sahuagin immediately sprouted vast clumps of bone coral from their bodies, encasing them rigidly within so they could not budge, until they finally perished from blood loss and suffocation.
Due to seawater resistance, the Guardian's firing range was very short, preventing it from serving as a standard ranged unit. But for defense, it was exceptional: the bullets did not even need to strike a target; even when they stalled out in the water, the bone-colonizing virus inside would proliferate wildly, sprouting bone coral to form barricades.
The Guardian's head held a massive supply of bone-colonizing virus bullets, enough to seal off this entire sea sector in bone.
As for the damaged submersible, it was purely a stroke of bad luck. Among the charging sahuagin was a spellcaster whose Chain Lightning struck the submersible, damaging it.
The hull structure was mostly unharmed, but several of the undead crew inside were electrocuted, leaving the submersible unable to function properly and sinking to the seafloor.
Anbaixiu also reviewed the casualty report, and a twinge of toothache hit him.
Every bit of this was money. Upon impact, the Small Fry released venom like bees, almost always dying in the process and making reuse nearly impossible.
Only after the battle was won could the bodies of the Small Fry be retrieved, after which he could craft new Simulated Souls to stuff back into them.
Losing eight thousand in one go was expected combat attrition, yet Anbaixiu still felt the pinch.
"Never mind, I won't interfere. I'll leave it to professionals like you," Anbaixiu said, simply closing the feeds on the magic mirror.
War was throwing gold coins into a furnace; a few more glances and his soul might just explode.
After closing the battlefield view, Anbaixiu did not stay idle. He opened the magic mirror and contacted another old friend.
The stern, unsmiling Gustavo Fring appeared on the mirror. Anbaixiu grinned and said, "Flynn, you saw the battle results just now, didn't you? Satisfied?"
Gustavo Fring replied coldly, "Passable, I suppose."
Anbaixiu burst out laughing. "Don't be so modest! Just 'passable'? In my eyes, it's downright invincible. Have you ever seen weapons of war like these? Have you ever seen such efficient slaughter? My earlier proposal—you shouldn't have any objections now, right?"
Gustavo Fring was sorely tempted to snap at him. Modest? As if this were his own product!
Yet Anbaixiu had brought up their collaboration, forcing Gustavo Fring to consider it seriously. He asked dubiously, "Are you truly willing to hand over the blueprints for these units to me? And promote them under my name?"
Anbaixiu shook his head. "Not under your name, but under the brand of 'God of Alchemy Selected.' Join my brand, and you will be the brand ambassador for these undead units. Even if you're not in charge of manufacturing them, most of the components are supplied by you. Think of how powerful an advertising effect that is!
"Think about it. Your Alchemists' Council has just been re-established, right when you need publicity most. I'm handing you this massive promotional campaign, guaranteed to have customers lining up at your door. And the only price is waiving my shipping fees. Such a tiny request is nothing to you, right?"
Anbaixiu said with a chuckle. How could anyone wage war without spending money? But then, one could always spend someone else's money, couldn't one?
Chapter 435