For Pirate Lord Augustus, the last few hours were fraught with confusion and frustration.The problem was threefold. First, he had been receiving sporadic reports of the battle from his flying fortress. The corsairs' battlelines had suddenly suffered a complete collapse hours ago. Mere moments before the destruction of the Imperial Navy, a massive wave of Jewelled Core demons had inexplicably emerged from the depths of the ocean and started attacking the pirate fleet.Whether this was a coincidence or somehow planned was irrelevant; the newly reforged Corsair Alliance was getting brutally hammered. The Sun Garden long-range mana sensors counted no less than eighty ship-size demons rampaging across the battle, with more coming in with each hour. While the stronger corsair vessels packed sufficient power and armour to fend off the horde of aquatic damned, the lesser ships were all too easily destroyed. Cohesion was lost, and along with it, any chance of regrouping to minimise casualties.The second problem was somehow of greater concern. In the distance, great plumes of smoke grew closer. The captured dreadnought, Iron Cage, and its mighty escorts of ironclad ships were closing in on the battle, led by the Kaldreach Independent faction and their powerful leader, the Infernal Hand. Augustus had hoped to destroy the Imperial Navy before turning his full attention to the Independents, but that was no longer possible. He doubted he could even quell the new demonic force in time before their arrival.And as for the third problem… Augustus felt the floors of his ship rumble. He resisted the urge to (...)