Chapter 518: Chapter 518

After days of frenzied skirmishing, war finally descended on Estalis like a black tide. General Odin held the line at Zaraga with grim determination, while Prince Vaskar and another seasoned Estalian general rode out to shield Lavista.

But in Azul, the fighting went from bad to worse: during the first three days, the Zurans’ cannons had shredded the fleet the Estalians had so feverishly built. Galleys that had been built only weeks before were riddled and broken; merchant and naval ships alike foundered under the enemy’s iron fire. Hundreds of lives had been swallowed by the sea.

Lara watched the maps and casualty lists with a hard, unblinking stare. She furrowed her brow until the lines between the coast and the waves blurred. The disparity between Zura’s naval power and Estalis’s was huge. There was no point in comparing. It was like heaven and earth. Every loss sharpened her resolve until a dangerous, precise, audacious idea took root. This update ıs available on 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩·𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖·𝘯𝘦𝘵

She gathered her brothers and their most trusted commanders in a private circle and spoke of a strike no one dared voice: a covert night attack on the Zuran command ship and fleet. Hit the flagship to create chaos, and then the rest of the fleet. It was the kind of plan that sold courage at a steep price.

At first, the council recoiled.

"I don’t agree," King Aragon said, voice raw. "This is too risky. It’s like sending men to their deaths."

Alaric and the other commanders voiced the same refusal; their faces were carved from the same unwillingness.

Lara did not blink. She called forward one of the soldiers — a powerful swimmer — who stepped into the torchlight dressed in a black wetsuit. A strange mask covered his face, a long bamboo tube affixed to a rubber mouthpiece feeding into it. The air between the commanders hummed with curiosity.

"To hide from the enemy," Lara said, "our men will be dressed . We’ll drop them a few hundred meters from the Zuran line. Some will paddle close in single-person kayaks to draw patrols away, others will swim beneath the surface and strike at the hull."

She let her hand rest on the soldier’s shoulder. "Master Hephastus crafted this breathing apparatus." She tapped the tube; its tip was fashioned like the fin of a great fish — odd, elegant, and somehow a fitting camouflage

Silence stretched, then broke. Alaric stepped to her side and, against his earlier caution, nodded.

"It’s perilous... but it could work," he admitted. The rest could find no better counter; the losses already sustained had thinned their bargaining power.

"This is my plan," Lara declared, her voice was cool like steel. "So I will lead the team."

"No Way!" The room erupted — a chorus of angry male voices rose, incredulous and protective. Lara didn’t flinch. She had seen the sea take fathers and sons; she would not let fear paralyze them.

That evening, under the cover of the night sky that swallowed everything in darkness, twenty dark shapes slipped toward the Zuran fleet.

Each man carried a single-person kayak — awkward, fragile silhouettes against the black sea. The kayaks were decoys; when enemy patrol boats swept near, the soldiers manning the kayak would dart and draw them off, while divers slipped beneath like ghosts.

Each swimmer had a carefully water-sealed gunpowder bundles, ready to be set against the wooden hulls. A small hole and a timed blast would damage the ship’s hull and cause it to sink.

Lara, Alaric, and Galahad dove together into the cold, salt-bitten water, cutting through the night. The sea closed around them, muffling the world to a heartbeat and the rush of blood.

Yes, in the end, Lara still led the attack team. They could not persuade her, and so Alaric and Galahad could only accompany her in the risky mission.

Lara led them forward — not because she wanted glory, but because she would not ask others to walk a path she refused to tread herself. Alaric and Galahad swam at her flanks. Between the hiss of their breaths and the pounding of their hearts, the fleet waited; dawn would tell whether Estalis had gambled wisely, or whether the sea would claim more of them yet.

The sea was silent — that deep, unnerving silence that comes before catastrophe. Only the whisper of bubbles broke through the dark water as Lara and her team glided beneath the Zuran fleet. Above them, the vast belly of the command ship loomed like a wooden fortress blotting out the moonlight. Lanterns swung faintly along its deck, and the rhythmic clank of chains echoed down through the hull.

In a short distance, the small patrol boats continued to chase the kayaks that glided gracefully on the waves.

Below, three silhouettes on which the fate of the Estalis army might hinge, moved effortlessly like sirens on their nightly swim. They needed only a careful hand and a single, well-placed explosives, and the wooden ship would take in water like the Titanic when it hit the tip of an iceberg.

Lara raised a hand, signaling her team to halt. Alaric drifted closer, his face barely visible behind his mask. She pointed toward the underside of the hull, where the shadows thickened. There — a weak spot near the keel, where a large plank had been patched over with newer timber.

She reached for the small waterproof pouch at her belt, withdrew the explosives and pressed it gently against the wood. Her fingers trembled only once, when she thought of home — of the soldiers weary eyes, of Estalis burning. Then she steadied herself and began to set the fuse.

Galahad floated nearby, scanning the waters above. A patrol boat drifted past, its oars slicing the surface like knives. For a tense moment, light from a hanging lantern shimmered through the water, catching the edge of Lara’s face mask. She froze. The light hovered, moved on.

When the last of the explosives was placed, Lara turned to her Alaric and Galahad and to the rest of the soldiers nearby.

Twenty heads, hearts pounding in rhythm with the slow beat of the sea. She signaled them upward — the retreat. Alaric lingered beside her, waiting until she had set the fire to the fuse. The fuse was long enough to give them time to retreat.

Then together they kicked away, vanishing into the dark like ink dissolving in water.

The first explosion came less than a minute later.

A deep, muffled roar shuddered through the sea. The water convulsed, and a burst of bubbles erupted from beneath the command ship. Then another explosion followed, sharper, closer — wood splintered, and the sound of tearing hulls roared through the night. The command ship heaved violently, its deck tilting as the water rushed in.

From above, the Zurans shouted in confusion. Chaos reigned. Bells clanged, men screamed orders, and torches flared along the deck. A third explosion ripped through the midsection — this time bright enough that the night itself seemed to blink. Flames licked upward from the deck, painting the waves in wild orange.

Then the succession of explosions came from the nearby warships. Those Zurans who scrambled to rescue the people from the command ship were caught off guard when their own shift tilted and started groaning.

Lara surfaced amid the chaos, gasping in the smoke-filled air. Around her, pieces of burning wood bobbed like stars fallen to the sea.

Alaric and Galahad broke the surface beside her. Galahad pulled off his mask, "It worked," he said, disbelief and awe tangled in his voice.

Alaric gave the signal, and the other soldiers who went with them disappeared underwater and resurfaced a safe distance away, where small boats awaited them.

The Zuran fleet was in disarray. Patrol boats collided as they scrambled to rescue their own. Commanders barked conflicting orders. Some ships fired blindly into the water, believing an ambush had come from all sides. The bay, moments ago so still, was now a boiling cauldron of panic and flame.

Lara watched the flagship sink, its great mast slowly tilting before collapsing into the fire. A wave of heat washed over her face. She could see men leaping into the sea, their armor dragging them down like stones.

"Now!" she shouted to her team, waving them toward the open waters. "Before they recover!"

They paddled furiously toward the dark horizon, leaving behind the wreckage and the screams. In the distance, the remaining Estalian ships began to move. They had seen the explosion. They knew what it meant.

When Lara and her men reached the Estalian coast, exhausted and soaked in salt, the sentries met them with torches and open mouths. King Aragon himself came to the shoreline, disbelief etched into his face.

Lara stood before him, still dripping with seawater. "The flagship of Zura," she said simply with a smirk on her face, "is no more."

By morning, the sea around Azul was filled with drifting wrecks and black smoke. The mighty Zuran command ship, along with its fleet, was gone, swallowed by the same sea it had once ruled, its men were scattered on the sea like drowning fish.

Three warships with the crest of Estalis loomed over them, fishing out the drenched and defeated Zurans from the water.

For a long moment, the king said nothing. Then, slowly, a faint smile cracked through the sorrow that had gripped him for days.

"Thank you, Lara," he whispered, "you’ve turned the tide."

"You are welcome, Angus," Lara said teasingly.

Behind them, the horizon still burned — a reminder that courage could set even the mightiest empire aflame.