A Helping Hand

After the destruction of the bulk of the Sky-Sea army, their forces were thrown into complete chaos. The majority of their upper leadership was now gone - vaporized in the nuclear blast. For several days, nobody had known what had happened. All of the disparate units simply noticed that they stopped receiving orders. It would be several days before they would finally realize that somehow the entire force sent on what was supposed to be an easy mission had somehow been completely destroyed.

Immediately following the strike on the demon capital, the human armies immediately began advancing and were met with almost no resistance. The scattered groups of Sky-Sea soldiers were not in contact with each other and were completely uncoordinated.

In one instance, a major base a moderate distance inside occupied had been unaware that they were in danger as they had not yet heard of the defeats suffered by the forces at the front. They were attacked by the mechanized battalion that utilized fast moving armored cars that allowed them to strike deep into enemy territory before a response could be mounted.

The attack had caught them by complete surprise and the base had fallen very quickly. The biggest haul from this attack was that several of the sh.i.p.s used by the Sky-Sea people were captured while still at dock. Upon their seizure, the humans were able to begin to study them and figure out how they worked.

They were soon able to figure out how to operate the sh.i.p.s, but the specifics of how the ship actually managed to function was still unknown. They operated off of completely different principles and the top magic researchers were give the task of investigating the internal mechanisms so that the technology could be adapted and integrated into what humans use.

Even once the Sky-Sea people managed to establish a new chain of command, they still found themselves surrounded by enemies. They were in a poor strategic position and most of their defensive lines had been broken through. Attempted counterattacks ended poorly as the planes were able to spot their movements and allow the human armies to defend against those attacks.

The Sky-Sea people began trying to leverage their sh.i.p.s more aggressively to try to destroy the planes that gave the humans information about their movements. However, at the same time the humans had adopted a different tactic to deal with the sh.i.p.s.

Each plane would be loaded with several God's Punishment Witches. The planes would first strafe the sh.i.p.s several times to kill most of the ship's defenders and then the planes would swoop in close over the ship and the God's Punishment Witches would jump out and board the ship. Through these daring moves, the humans were able to capture many of the sh.i.p.s used by the Sky-Sea people.

Very soon, the skies became dominated by the humans. At this point, the outcome of the war was no longer in doubt. The human advance had slowed down their advance after the initial surprise wore off. However, once they brought in their heavy equipment like their cannons and tanks, the defenses of the Sky-Sea people were slowly but surely dismantled.

Eventually, the Sky-Sea army realized that it was in a hopeless situation and they tried to evacuate aboard the few sh.i.p.s that they had remaining. As the sh.i.p.s began leaving, they were constantly harried by attacks from planes. When they finally saw more sh.i.p.s in the distance, they were relieved, thinking that they had found more isolated survivors that had come to join them.

However, it was at this point that the humans were using their hidden weapon. After the sh.i.p.s had been seized, crews were trained to operate them and this new fleet was actually manned by humans. When the second fleet closed in, the truth was suddenly revealed.

The two fleets of sh.i.p.s soon clashed and ship to ship combat occurred. The soldiers on both sides tried to board the sh.i.p.s of their opponent. Machine guns were devastatingly effective, being able to mow down everyone on the deck of a ship very quickly. The God's Punishment Witches also showed their prowess in close quarters combat. Finally, the airplanes which had been in communication with the other fleet over radio swooped in as the battle begun and also started attacking.

Once the battle was over, many of the sh.i.p.s controlled by the Sky-Sea people were captured and some had been destroyed and fell to the ground. A few sh.i.p.s had tried to escape but were quickly chased down by the planes which were much faster.

The home of the Sky-Sea people was located up in the sky, on massive floating islands. These islands floated off of the west coast of the continent. However, there were also spatial distortions that linked the islands to the seas far to the east of the continent. There were massive pillars buried under the sea that were actually the bottom of these islands and when water approached it would suddenly end up transported to the other side of the world where it would then be suspended above the air. These floating islands looked like they had an endless stream of water falling out of them.

The humans used their captured sh.i.p.s to launch an assault on the home of the Sky-Sea people. Initially, the inhabitants of the islands thought that it was their own sh.i.p.s returning. As a result, their defenses were not active and the sh.i.p.s were able to land. The islands had few military forces available as most of their soldiers had been sent off in the invasion. The humans were quickly able to completely take control of the islands that they landed on.

Finally, there were only a few areas still under the control of the Sky-Sea people. Large islands that had not been hit with the initial attack were able to defend themselves as they had powerful anti-air capabilities. Both sh.i.p.s and planes would be destroyed if they attacked. The smaller islands however did not have very many defenses so they were taken over.

Once the situation settled down, there were twelve islands remaining for the humans to assault. With the current technology and the lack of an element of surprise, it would be impossible to land an army on the islands. For the time being, the humans waited, keeping a tight watch on the Sky-Sea people who were holed up in their fortified bases.