This chapter was supposed to come out ages ago; forgive me, for I have forsaken you, the reader.
Due to my treason, next chapter will be extended to cover 2 fights.
Quality is less compared to my previous chapters but hopefully it will get better
More notes at the end
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Night fell upon the world once more, and for a warrior not of this world she lives to see it. She, who was supposed to die, continued to sail into the night, the mountain behind her slowly getting smaller as she sailed in a random direction.
As darkness fell on the land, the battleship seemed to black out almost entirely. Her navigation lights were still on pulsing with a dim green, red and white colour.
The moon was luckily not obscured, bathing the light in its moonlight, giving it a fantasy vibe even though the battleship stood out like a sore thumb.
However, for the ship itself, Haruka, she couldn't care less, even if the moon was hidden, she still had night vision and her trusty radar to alert her of any creature in a 900km radius (560 miles)
She was lucky the AEGIS upgrade gave her the SPY-6 radar; she wasn't sure if her vague upgrade would work, but it did. Slowly, she was ditching her old systems for new and improved modern systems, but the problem once again hit her: Is it enough?
The monsters in this world were defying the limits of what she thought monsters could do, but if she were in a magical world, it was bound to happen. Haruka sighed, a puff of black smoke escaping her funnel; she still didn't know how she returned.
She could vaguely remember the feeling of her internals exploding, her armour buckling, and everything else being sent sky high, followed by a darkness that swallowed up her vision, only for her to open her eyes in the real world.
She saw her parents and little brother again, but it looked like they were still grieving over her, especially her parents. Not only them, but her best friend Rin was looking as if life had taken her through the gutters and still was.
The barrels of her main guns sank as guilt chewed at her; she's here alive in another world, fighting for her life while her friends and family are all dealing with her death.
Her ship's horn blared as she mentally screamed the sound echoing into the night. She didn't want any of this; she didn't ask to be turned into a literal ship, she didn't want to be fighting monsters, but here she was, a being from another world, sailing through land.
She laughed in her head as her mental state took a beating. If Selene wasn't in the picture, she was certain that she would have gone senile or even died from the monsters in this world.
If her parents knew what happened to her, she wondered how they'd react.
A faint memory flashed through her head as she remembered the few words her mom told her.
'Wherever you are, just know that you're not alone'
The motors in her turrets hummed as her barrels were raised slightly above the level position giving a ship a captivating yet deadly look.
Her mom was right; even if they knew what happened to her, there's nothing they could do other than cheer her on, and she's stupid for thinking otherwise.
The night stretched out as her ship ploughed through the giant forest, the mountain becoming a speck on the horizon. Haruka used this time to train herself using her radar and her seventh sense.
She knew that she couldn't rely on it fully since the monsters in this universe broke the scales of what her modern systems were supposed to counter. She practised target the small creatures that littered the forest, her stock of High Explosive shells being used for the first time in a while.
The forest became alive as her secondaries and phoenix turrets let loose, her main guns silent. After some practise she ran a simulated test of her previous opponent, the wolf king. It was the only monster she had data on and thus simulated a rematch, trying to come up with strategies to counter fast and agile opponents.
Her main turrets came up next, belching out fire, 9 shells being sent downrange into the gaps on trees before exploding downrange. The explosion knocked some trees over while other caught on fire. Her phoenix turrets let out continous suppressive fire funnelling any opponent into a death trap fire, while her secondaries sent precise shots that were aimed to either blind or at least hinder the opponents movemnt. When these are all done, her main punching bags were let loose, sending 9 shells of pure destruction downrange.
When she was finished, the forest was burning with an intense fire that it rarely sees, and on the edges of the forest cover, we could make out a battleship fleeing the flames behind it at flank speed. In her training, she totally forgot she was surrounded by flammable objects thus creating a not so small fire outbreak.
Haruka sighed as she eyed the plains around her, weary of any goblins that could ambush her, but it was like she could with her radar continuously scanning her surroundings. Dawn was about to break as the sky was coloured in a golden colour.
Steam was rising from her barrels as the morning fog condensed on her metal. Whatever monster that's next, she was ready to fight them.
Haruka eased up on her speeding, putting her ship at cruise speed to save fuel. She wasn't sure when she'd encounter a monster; there was no need for her to waste fuel, especially since her engines were huge gas guzzlers at flank speed. She could slowly feel her tank, basically her stomach, get lighter the more fuel she burns.
The sun slowly crawled up the sky, casting its light upon the world. Haruka, at this point, was bored. There was no monster in sight as far as her vision could see, and her radar showed nothing in a 900 kilometre radius.
At this point, she was going to die of boredom and not a monster. Something was moving on her stern as her spotter aircraft was removed from storage. She might just fly in the sky to alleviate her boredom.
Soon, the aircraft was set on the catapult with another one being prepped for launch. Soon, the first was launched, its engine droning out as it quickly flew forward to scout some monsters. The second one soon followed, but Haruka was unaware of what was about to happen.
The first spotter suddenly blew up, sending Haruka into a state of emergency as her guns were locked and loaded to slug it out, only for her radar to show no monster in the area. But what it did show now was a huge hole in the radar right in front of her, and her second spotter was headed right for it.
Sure, she had four others, but each one of them mattered to her. She immediately switched her view to the plane and pulled up sharply. The engine protested as it was pushed to maximum power, and the air seemed to get hazy as Haruka briefly saw the rainbow colour of something flash in her vision. Her plane struggled to climb into the sky as her tyres grazed something, a wave of rainbow colour spreading from the touch.
Haruka pitched the plane till it was upside down and the engine was almost stalling before saving it and rolling to her topside. Her eyes never left the sector where she saw that phenomenon, but it was at that moment that she forgot something, her ship!!
Switching her vision again made her slightly disoriented, but that didn't stop her from turning her rudder to the max to her starboard. The ship listed to its left side as the massive battleship tried to turn to avoid the danger in front of it, but it was too late, and the ship was too slow.
She tried closing her eyes even though she didn't really have eyes, so she had to bear witness as her bow struck the weird phenomenon in front of her. She totally expected her bow to start melting, but she didn't expect a barrier of sorts to appear in a rainbow colour.
The barrier glowed intensely as Haruka felt her speed slowing down, but her ship began to turn even faster, almost as if the barrier was pushing her away. This reminded her of the edge of the map in WoWs. She appreciated the help pushing her away and immediately sped up to put some distance between her and the shield.
If she didn't have her radar, she wouldn't know that there's a barrier in that place. She zoomed in on that region, and even at max level, she couldn't make it out. This made her wonder about its durability. If it could tank her whole weight, slamming into it, then shrugging off her shell would be easy.
Her turret 3 rotated with its barrels rising, AP shells loaded. Her turret locked in place as she adjusted her barrels before letting her shells rip across the air.
Ka-Boom!
From the perspective of her ship, she followed the traces as they smacked into the barrier, a colourful display on full view as the shells tried to pierce through the barrier. When the light dimmed, she observed 3 hunks of metal falling off from the barrier.
Her AP shells were squished almost as if she were shooting at a battleship grade Kevlar armour. But if Ap couldn't quite cut it, then she needed something destructive.
Her barrels lowered to neutral as alarms sounded in her turret. Her loading system is bringing up a glossy black shell loaded with the golden material of any nuclear country, highly enriched uranium-235.
She wanted to test something; her barrels rose to the max inclination as Haruka turned away from the barrier. She estimated the area of the barrier due to her glitchy radar, but she didn't know how high it went.
Once a good distance away, she slowed down before firing her turret 3. A belch of fire was released from the barrels as 3 black shells were launched into the sky. It didn't take long before a bright explosion filled her vision, a fireball expanding from the detonation point.
She could faintly see the shield ripple as the nuclear punch to it didn't blast through it. Sadly, she watched the ripples extend upwards to a point where she lost track off giving her the impression that the barrier extends far into the sky, which was weird.
Through the eyes of her spotter aircraft she watched the shells explode against the shells letting out kilotons of energy together. From her vantage point she observed a bright white spot before a rainbow like wave spread away from the explosion area. Even though she was flying at her maximum height she couldn't quite track the waves spreading high into the atmosphere till a point where she couldn't see it.
Later on she recovers her survivng spotter still salty after losing her other one. Her engines were cranked up to cruise speed as she continued her journey, sailing around the barrier.
Time passed as the sun crawled through the sky, its radiant heat doing little to distract Haruka from looking at her unchanging scenery for the past 5 hours!
At this point, she was thinking of just going back to the ocean since there wasn't anything going on on land. As soon as she said that, was when she spotted something straight out of Avatar.
Her vision zoomed in on what looked to be floating islands that defied physics in almost every way. Her radar also picked on distortions in front of her, which gave her the feeling that the barrier was funnelling to a single point.
She weighed her options, looking at the suspicious island path and the open plains, and chose to go down the island, knowing full well it would be a trap, but that's why people always prepare for everything.
Her turrets spun alternatively, giving her close to 360 degrees of coverage, making it that almost no monster could sneak up on her unless it was a chameleon. She sailed forth, weary for any attack, but that's when she noticed something besides her on the path or what's left of them.
Strewn around the path were countless skeletons, both fresh and young of various monsters, which piqued Haruka's interest and also trauma, as multiple wolf remains were strewn in the mix.
This raised her alert level; her main guns swapped AP with her nukes as whatever monster was in this region it wasn't anything to laugh at.
Her radar continuously scanned her surroundings, even though it was being increasingly jammed by the magic around her. She tried reducing its scan range to minimise the jamming, but she wasn't sure if it was working.
The surrounding geography was also changing as it began to sharply rise with what looks like a hill split inro 2 lying in its path. Her anxiety was rising as her radar was giving her weird readings before a sudden alert blared from her radar.
The floating islands that were momentarily stationery a while ago suddenly jerked forward as they fell towards her position.
She slammed her engines to flank speed as her guns aimed.
Ka-Boom!
One island was reduced to boulders and dust as a nuclear explosion ripped through it, a shower of debris washing over her. She couldn't rest as her other main guns let loose, destroying 2 more islands.
Her secondaries and phoenix canons weren't slouching in the meantime as they laid precise shots that broke apart islands like clay.
The split hill was quickly coming into view as the battleship made a beeline for the hills' safety. With her slow speed that was proving difficult as more massive islands were falling on her and they were only getting bigger.
Her main guns were now the only thing useful as even with her secondaries using nukes, it didn't quite break the massive islands apart.
If she were able to sweat, she would be sweating right now as her main guns let out another salvo with only 2 islands going down. She was sure as hell that if all that rock fell on her, she might live, but her superstructure would have been pancaked and her ship stuck unless she blew her way out of it.
The islands were now roughly 200 metres away and closing in fast, but the hill was also close. Her Phoenix guns were doing their absolute best, but with so much matter in the way, they couldn't land the destructive blow. Luckily, her main guns managed to reload in time as 3 islands descended upon her.
Ka-Boom! Ka-Boom! Ka-Boom!
Her main guns roared as a massive wave of debris pelted her as her ship barely managed to get into the hill, the rest of the islands crashing behind her.
Haruka sighed as that was a really close call, but now she was in a compromised location.
Looking around her, she noticed that she was in a large carven that looked to be carved out and a weird blue glow filled it defying what common sense says, even though she's in a magical world.
She didn't notice her radar black out as the magical energy in that place was off the charts, and due to that, she paid for her moment of distraction. A huge boulder suddenly struck her turret, 1, shattering against the thick metal but not without giving her a jump scare.
She barely had enough time to look up as even more boulders were falling from the rim of the hill, and in that moment, she realised just how exposed her fire control systems were.
Haruka knew that she couldn't avoid the falling stones, thus she had to gamble her sensors as the middle barrel of her turret 1 raised to its maximum angle of 45 degrees. A single black shell was fired from it, the shell spinning through the air as it struck the side of the hill before exploding in a fiery nuclear explosion.
The explosion engulfed the debris in a powerful explosion as heat and shockwaves pounded the rocks into smaller particles, giving Haruka a chance of escaping as her boilers were running at max power. Looking back at the blast area, we see a sizeable dent in the hillside but not a crater that one would expect from a direct strike because Haruka timed the shells to fire in an airburst in order to avoid caving herself in, and luckily that paid off.
However, in the cracks caused by the explosion, we could see a weird blue energy as if it were worming its way out or maybe reacting to the environment or something.
A sharp glimmer caught Haruka's eye right in front of her before a sharp sound filled her ears.
*Screeeeee*
A sharp screech pierced her ears as she now briefly registered something smacking into turret 1 before being deflected away and striking the ground with a thud. Sticking out was a shaft of what looked like a spear, though crude, it somehow survived striking her modern layered armour, which was a feat in itself.
The amount of force behind the throw was enough to tingle her turret and even her hull, a sharp orange streak could be seen where her armour was scratched. The steel being melted along that line or scratch marked a reminder of how strong some of these monsters were.
Her sights narrowed as they locked onto her new foe, who was dead in front of her, and for some reason, she couldn't help but feel like she was in the Monsterverse.
Staring right down on her was none other than the famous primate from that series. Standing at over 100 metres (337 feet) tall and weighing in at over 90 thousand metric tons, we have the king of Skull Island. King Kong!
The look-alike monster gave a roar as a blue aura shrouded its body. An axe was at its side, but this one looked more refined and sturdy. If a crude spear could scrape her armour then the spear was something she needed to watch out for.
But she couldn't back down from a challenge and replied in kind, roaring.
Ka-Boom! Boom! Da-Da-Da-Da!
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Author here, once again terribly sorry for the short chapter, but I just wanted to publish something that you readers would like. The next 2 chapters are planned to be action-oriented, with the land arc drawing to a close in 4 more or less chapters, depending on how much story is covered in the upcoming ones.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I shall be back with more, and hopefully I can stay true to my words.
Have a good day- Drago.