Descending in an airship is a really weird sensation, especially as quickly as I have done at this moment.

There is nothing deadly about it, since there are protections against it in our defensive formations but it is a weird sensation. The closest sensation would be to call it a sense of nausea.

It isnt exactly, but for our purpose it is essentially the same and piloting an airship is a demanding and adaptive process, especially when it comes to descending quickly.

You lose focus for a second and you could overcommit, directly hitting the ground. As for the reason I am explaining all of this, it is for the fact that the instant I go down none of the enemy ships go down with me. Firstly there is a risk of crashing and secondly they don't really need to.

One reason is that I will have to rise up soon enough. Flying this close to the ground in a mountain is quite the dangerous feat. You can't really tell the slope of the ground, so crashing is quite easy unless you really know the land. Then again, there is a forest in the region so I have more immediate worries.

There are too many things that can go wrong. I don't dare to stay down here for too long. Well, I still managed to get rid of a more immediate problem.

I am not surrounded on all sides by the enemy. Though, how long I can maintain this is really upto fate.

For now, I get my bearing and begin to move the ship away from the present location, towards the mayfire castle. Flying this close to the trees is quite the hazard.

You never know how the trees might react to the propulsion formation. Some just tend to move away. Some just remain where they and other tend to rebound and hit the ship. This is a problem with particularly old trees. Such constant barrage of trees hitting tends to really put a strain on the defensive formation, which is fine in our case. The environmental formations will be taking a hit. Most of the environment formations on this ship are present outside the ship, encapsulating the ship like a bubble.

Well, the ship should be able to take it for a while thankfully, mainly due to the strength of the materials. The enemy ships have remained in the sky, not daring to come down to my level. That doesn't mean they are not chasing me. They will follow me from a safe distance and bombard me the instant that they can come close to my position. Thankfully they are not shooting at the moment. Even if they shot it, it would be nothing but a waste of mana. Aiming cannons is a very specialised art, something that pirates cannot afford to learn and a cannoneer someone they cannot afford to hire.

Studying my enemies. there are eight ships, with the boarding ship included. Atleast the reinforcements do not seem to be a ship at the level of the boarding ship. The cannons on the enemy ships seem to be a combination of the fire elements, the wind element and what I think is steam (can't tell from this distance) all aimed at me.

Other than their cannons, They are closer to piles of junk than actual ships, though I have to admit that they are offensively strong at the very least. I have to assume they spent everything of their budget on the cannons.

Well, it is a not a weakness that I can afford. I go to shoot up one of them, I will have to face the barrage of seven ships. My ship is quite durable but seven sets of cannons is not something that simple durability will be able to handle.

I will need a formation shield of the seventh class at the very least to handle that kind of barrage. That leaves me with escape as the only option left.

How to escape is the issue that i cannot figure out. My ship is relatively small and quite agile, enough to keep out of the way of the enemy ships but I have no method of escaping their range of cannons without leaving a dozen holes in my ships.

Well, at my present location if enemy cannons won't be the cause, the trees here will. Every moment, I can feel the ship being bombarded by trees from either side, hitting the ships with a dry clunk that frankly leaves me worried. Every hit represent a certain chance that I might end up choking due to a lack of an atmosphere when we rise up.

The force of such collisions might not be high, but it accumulates. I can stay here for another ten minutes beyond which the environment formations will be breached for certain. All I can hope is that the ship will gain enough of a distance from the enemy before that limit. Though looking at the way things are going it might not be case.

Thankfully, all the ships that are following me are slow enough that I have no need to worry about the fact that I will be able to get something of a lead.

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(After ten minutes.)

Well, as I had expected, the enemy ships were quite adept at keeping up with us, especially the boarding ship which is the fastest among the enemy ships. While they are distant enough that the boarding ship is not a problem but I am still in the range of the cannons. Not close enough for accurate hitting, but enough that one in their ten shots will hit. Not particularly bad odds given their number.

Well, I can't remain down here anymore. Every tree hitting us seems to be on the verge of breaching the environment formation. If that happens then we can't rise into the sky again. I prefer a quick and fiery collision to slow choking.

Maintaining an atmosphere is already the limit of the formations that my master has placed here. Looks like I will have to upgrade that formation myself. Knowing that man it was intentional. Druidic magic is one of the best at environmental manipulation after all. The man is out to kill me, i swear to you.

Leaving distractions aside, I raise the ship. Climbing upwards, I do everything to ensure that the enemy won't end up shooting through the ship. Firstly I adopt the zig-zag manner of travelling that I seem to have perfected in the recent times. That is a depressive thought.

It is not particularly effective, as I can still feel the ship walls strain as fire balls hit it. I am thankful that heartwood doesn't seem to be burn that well, so at the very least we do not need to worry about the ensuing fires. I am pretty sure the ship has no emergency formations to deal with a sudden fire.

The ship can last under their pursuit for quite a while at this distance. I push the formation to run at its maximum speed leaving behind all restrictions placed on it. It leaves behind a trail of turbulent wind as I remove all the safety limits my master placed on the thing. The external defensive formation feel as if it is about to break apart and if that happens thing are going to get quite bumpy up here.

I forgot to mention before but my master had placed a wind based propulsion formation. I do not really know what level of formation it is( it is always hard to tell with my masters work.), though based on its performance I have to assume that it is a class seven formation at the very least.

Fuck, why am I speaking of this now. I can feel the ship breaking apart and that is when I am already a decent distance away from the enemy. If they were closer I would have to deal with this barrage while trying to keep a boarding ship of my tail.

I keep the ship aimed upwards, trying to see if the enemy has a height limitation that I can exploit. Sadly, the enemy keeps following us. At some point, Trevor had left the room. The trio should be shooting at the enemy at this moment unless they fell due to a hole in the wall.

From this distance even if they get a couple of shots in though, they will not be able to do much damage. Well, as long as it effects the enemy it is fine for me.

At this point, it would be wise for me to call my troop into the core room, especially trevor but I do not have the formations available to communicate with them. Another formation that I forgot that I did not have. Even if I could telling them to move is too risky. Every cannon shot that is hitting the ship is breaking the ships stability just that bit more.

Thinking about the ships state leaves me feeling like I want to cry. Thankfully this is the worst of what I will be facing. The enemy ships are slowly being left behind. Even the boarding ship is quite the bit behind me. Repairing all of this damage will be quite the pain but I should be able to manage it for quite a bit. I have a trick up my sleeve after all.

As I begin to move the ship a bit more quicker, the door to core room is flung open. I can see my troop here. All of them seem to be running, with Trevor on Jacobs back.

"Captain, ground the ship.", Trevor speaks.

"That is impossible, Trevor.", I reply. "It would damage the ship too much."

"The ship might as well be destroyed, captain. Just heed my word and ground the ship.", he speaks, his voice containing a rare gravity.

"Fine, but after this the ship will be grounded completely for a couple of days at the very least.", I reply shortly and focus on the task at hand.

Land in a forest is just about the hardest challenge that I will face. Well calling it landing would be wrong. This will be crashing, just as soft of a crashing as I can manage. For a moment I wonder if I have lost a screw or two. I squash that thought. Trevor know what he is doing.

It breaks my heart though, as I slowly descend the ship about as vertically as I can manage it. That way the chances of collsions with trees will be as little as possible.

At least on this I am succesful, though I can feel that the ship has been pierced in multiple locations. I can confirm three locations where a tree has left a hole in the ship.

"The ship is grounded, Trevor.", I speak, with annoyance that must be clearly detectable the way the guys are behaving. Who likes to damage his own ship. "Without a good explanation I will imagine up some way to punish you."

"Captain, I have been wondering if how the bloodheart gang could have reached us so quickly after detecting us.", he spoke. "First I assumed that they would have just put that many ships for the purpose of patrolling."

"Seems reasonable, but I would prefer you got to the point where I have been forced to damage my own ship", I reply.

"I am getting there, young man. There is no way the bloodheart gang could have managed to keep their pirating ongoing with so many of their ships stuck in patrolling. The only way they could have the affected food transport to such a degree is if they have managed to take over the mayfire castle already.", he speaks. What he says does seem a bit logical, though it does leave one point.

"Why did you then make land the ship. We are still atleast twenty minutes away from the castle. There would have been safer places to land", I ask.

"Well, if they have taken the castle. There should be a bunch of reinforcements passing through any second, captain.", he replies. "That would have been enough to ground us anyways isn't it. I would suggest that we camouflage the ship as much as we can manage immediately."

"Yeah", is the only thing that I reply.