Editing Dantega:Volume 7 Chapter 7


(PART 4)





Haas Avondale and Ebihara Seiri have finally made it to the western shores of Troy alongside their million man invasion force. The thousands of ships and vessels were originally planned to land at different intervals of time depending on the enemy defenses at the beach, but when Seiri looked through her binoculars towards shore and found that there wasn’t even one artillery bunker, pillbox, nor any kind of blockade, she ordered all of the smaller ships to land first and have the larger vessels throw down anchor about a hundred yards from land.

When it became obvious to her that there would be no heavy fire shot at them from shore, the only possible defense they could have would be soldiers on foot. This is why she sent out the smaller ships carrying ground troops to engage the enemy first, and have the larger forces pile up on them from behind.

It’d be a swift and steady invasion if it got to that point, the enemy would be overwhelmed by the tsunami in the form of hundreds of thousands of troops.

“Hmmm…” Seiri mumbles, though the landing was effortless, something is still bothering her. “There really ought to be at least someone guarding the western shores of Troy… I mean, other than those ships we engaged a few days back there hasn’t been much of a naval presence to defend themselves. If that wasn’t strange enough, now they aren’t even protecting their shores?”

Sure, this was all supposed to be a surprise attack, and she and the others knew that there wouldn’t be much Hell’s army could do to stop such a sudden blitz, but she at least expected that they would prepare for such a thing just in case. Seiri is having a hard time believing that Satan would be so careless. Their enemy may be arrogant and confident, but by no means should he be this foolish.

“What do you think Haas?”

“.....”

Haas obviously doesn’t answer, but he’s thinking pretty much the exact same thing. As far as he can see into to Troy, there’s no sign of resistance.

The sand of the shoreline is smooth and looks to be untouched by man or machinery, and just beyond that are the baron dunes leading to Troy’s infamous mountains. Even if there were troops hiding within the hills, there’d still be at least a sign that they have been, or are currently there.

These facts all but show the two Knights that the expected resistance will be avoided, and they will begin their smooth path towards the Capital without conflict for the foreseeable future.

This should sooth their nerves, this should make them breathe a sigh of relief, this should most certainly ease the anxiousness of the invasion.

Yet, the two elite soldiers feel uneasy, in fact, they feel downright tense.

It’s as though they have walked into a birthday party only to find that the room is dark and no one is there.

There may be no one around, but that doesn’t mean that a group of friends aren’t hiding behind the couch preparing a surprise filled with confetti and balloons.

And fearing that this might be the case, Seiri eases her grip on her binoculars and turns to Haas. “Hey… Prepare the cannon and point it towards shore.”

“…Yes…”

Haas doesn’t question her order, and in all likelihood he would have done so whether she told him to or not.

Seiri takes a deep breath and is quickly overrun with angst and hurriedly shouts to the others, “Everyone prepare the cannons! Point them towards shore and tell all other ships equipped to do the same!”

The men look at her perplexed, they don’t feel what she feels so they have no clue why she would command such a thing.

“Do it now!!”

But seeing her expression melt into a frantic state causes them to lose all forms of hesitation and rush to their positions. It only takes a couple seconds for the shouting between the ships of the armada to be heard by each commanding officer, and before long the majority of the ships position themselves to strike the island.

The shouting didn’t go unheard by the ground troops on shore, and the thousands who have already touched down turn to see their own allied cannons pointing right towards them.

Naturally they are confused, but when a flare is shot from the mother ship of the armada, they know that they must be alert. The red flare means there are combatants in the area; though it was normally used to warn others of encroaching ships at sea, the men are sure that the same rule applies for land as well considering the situation.

Within an instant, thousands of troops prepare themselves and point their shields and spears inland towards the dunes leading to the mountains.

It’s only now, once the entire force of WORLD’s Navy is postured in a defensive position, that the silence of an impending battle hits eerily against them. Just the sound of the waves crashing causes an anxious surge of heart wrenching pressure beating at them like it did for the two Knights.

However, there’s nothing there. There is simply nothing there.

And upon seeing that, many of the men become lax and lose their focus, and then some begin to doubt the order of their young Captain.

But Seiri ignores the murmurs echoing through the gaps of the ships and water and continues to stand at the bow and peer through her binoculars. She steadies her breathing so she doesn’t do something careless, but ends up flinching at an animal that just happened to be scurrying across the grass out in the distance.

She’s normally not this jumpy, and really shouldn’t be, figuring that the worse enemy they’d face would be Hell’s ground troops. Sure maybe some might have rifles, but they have the firepower of thousands of warships and the advantage of sheer numbers on her side. Maybe even some demons might have supernatural powers, but again, there’s a million people behind her, unless all of them have some kind of ability there’s just no way they could win.

But she truly feels that it’s not enough, for whatever reason she is certain that there is something in those hills that could destroy them; and whatever it is, is forcing an unpleasant sweat to fall down her temple in nervousness.

“Captain—“

“!!?”

Seiri jumped when a deckhand came from behind her and touched her shoulder.

The man flinches back as well and clears his throat before saying, “Is this some kind of false alarm?”

The young girl frowns and spits out her reply, “It’s not, now get back to your post.”

“But Captain…”

“I said go!!”

The deckhand reluctantly salutes and begins walking back towards the lower deck of the ship.

Seiri puffs out of her nose in anger at the fact that she got startled so badly, it got her to the point where her knees are shaking in adrenaline.

It startled her so badly that she lost her focus.

And when she turns back around and looks through her binoculars once more, it’s clear that that momentary loss of focus cost her valuable seconds.

“!!!”

Thousands of men clad in black come storming down the mountains like an avalanche, and they only took a second before they are scaling the buffs leading to the sandy shore.

“Haas fire!!!”

BBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOSSHHHHH!!

The explosion of the fire followed by the cannonball breaking the sound barrier is heard, until a split second later the concussion of the ball hitting directly into quickly approaching enemies follows.

BBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMM!!!!

Hundreds of bodies and the extremities that once belonged to them are sent flying hundreds of yards in every which direction in a bright bluish-yellow blast. The chemicals of Seiri’s special bomb caused the explosion to be three times the size of any other and the kill radius of the blast took out a large chunk of the opposing force.

Hearing the shot, all the other ships that had their cannons ready begin firing as well, and within an instant the dunes are lit up in a brilliant display of flames.

When the shore is fully covered in the heavy smoke from the cannon fire, the ships cease their attack, much to the chagrin of the young captain leading the charge.

“What the hell are you dimwits doing!? Keep firing!”

The ships don’t listen and wait for the smoke to clear, it’s common practice to stop firing if a target isn’t visible.

“Damn it! Haas! Shoot into the smoke, they’ll follow you!”

Haas doesn’t hesitate, he can hear her orders loud and clear through the latch leading into the specially built cannon room and quickly obeys her command.

With a loud bang that jolts the massive ship, another cannon is sent flying into the smoke at such a speed it halfway parts the black form of burnt air spewing from the dunes. There’s no way of telling how much damage it did to the incoming men, but the moment the concussion made its way from the initial blast all the way to their ears, they can clearly see black smoke being replaced by the flames of a new explosion.

This should have prompted the others to fire just like Seiri said, but to her surprised they still decide not to act.

So once again the deathly silence from the smoke takes the place of the noises of war and Seri’s thoughts begin to ring loud in her head.

(Damn it! That isn’t going to be enough!)

As if on cue, thousands of men clad in black run though the smoke simultaneously at such a speed that the trail of broken gray air slides off of them and is left behind in their wake.

“!!”

If Seiri’s orders weren’t enough to get them to fire, having a wall of monsters running their way certainly will.

BANG!! BOOM!! BAAAAM!! BOOOM!!!

The cannons from hundreds of ships fire at such short intervals it sounds almost like one collective shot.

The cannon balls hit all over the shore, tearing countless numbers of the men in black to shreds as they make their way towards the water. Yet it doesn’t deter them, they still run forward fearlessly as if their lives and limbs mean nothing; even with missing arms and legs they still push with all their might towards a maelstrom of destruction like an landslide.

The soldiers of WORLD who were the ones unfortunate enough to be ordered to land first are watching this horrid display of firepower and sheer determination clash right in front of them. Both of which are closing in on them quicker than they can react.

“Are they ever going to stop!!?” One man shouted, voicing the thoughts of everyone else near him who are having a hard time deciding whether to duck for cover of prepare themselves for the incoming men in black.

That question could be asked to both sides of this ridiculous situation they’ve found themselves pinned in the middle of.

Surely the incoming men in black, rushing towards a final destination that could only destroy them would eventually succumb to the barrage of cannon fire and cut their losses and turn away.

Or surely the ships of WORLD’s Armada will realize that they are sending their cannonballs flying over a thousand allied soldiers right in front of them, and if they keep aiming at the men in black the balls would soon be landing right on top of them as well.

However, due to the incredibly fast moving men in black that seemingly care for only one objective, and the likely panicked captains of the hundreds of ships that are watching the men in black’s numbers grow as they near, both wishes will not be granted.

It only took another couple seconds and the two forces collide into the allies on shore and all are virtually wiped out. The cannon fire rips their wooden boats docked on shore to shreds and the men in black use their extraordinary strength toss the soldiers aside like trash in the wind.

Now, here comes the part where the men clad in black reach their doom; because now they have finally reached the water of the ocean. They simply can’t move any further and have pinned themselves up between a rock and a hard place, it’s only a matter of time before the cannon fire becomes too great of a burden even for them.

However, the monsters in black don’t stop. Rather, they didn’t even slow down.

All of them jump forward on top of the debris of the small boats in such a delicate and orderly fashion that it’s as though they were running on land all along. And in the few instances where their weight was too much and the broken pieces of wood submersed under the water, the men trailing behind would jump from shore and land atop another comrade before jumping off their shoulders and flying forward meters at a time.

It more or less looks like a full colony of ants rushing in on an enemy hive; the way they climb atop each other and scream across the water in one black mass frightens the men of the Armada to the core.

This feeling is not lost on Seiri, she’s terrified. Such a thing happening was so far from her imagination that she’s having a hard time comprehending how to manage such a sudden change of plans. But she is still a soldier, and knowing full well that continuing to fire cannons at them is no longer going to be effective in slowing them down, she opens the hatch to the room Haas is stationed in and shouts,

“Get the guns Celestia gave us! They’re coming in fast!”

“…Understood…”

The hundred or so guns that Celestia made solely for Seiri’s ship alone are stored in the same room as the giant cannon under the bow, and Haas opens up a crate and pulls them out. He quickly begins tossing them through the doorway and up to Seiri, who shouts to the others to all grab one and prepare for the immanent battle.

The men on this ship are the strongest and best trained soldiers of the Armada, and these elite soldiers were briefly trained to operate these rifles if it were to get to that point. The use of the guns were not a part of the original invasion plan; mainly because the invading forces number over a million, Celestia barely had enough time to produce enough weapons to arm the WORLD’s Riflemen, she could only give what was left to the elite men of Seiri’s crew in hope that they’d be the ones to put the advanced weaponry to the best use if it became necessary.

By the time the majority of the crew arm themselves, the men clad in black have climbed, jumped, ran over and flat out swarmed into the bulk of ships that number in the thousands. Dozens of the monsters begin to climb each ship and do it so quickly that the crews barely had enough breathing room to prepare themselves properly.

The ones not already postured in defensive positions are demolished so fast it couldn’t even be called a fight. The men in black have strength no regular man could match up against, the humans are outmatched and overwhelmed.

This unleashes a panic in the masses so great it shatters all rational thought and causes the men to act based upon instinct. And when one’s life is in danger, the untrained eye of a man can dilute the instincts and force themselves into making a decision that not only won’t protect their own lives, but puts everyone else and danger as well.

And this is what exactly happens when the cannons begin firing once more.

BBAAMM! BOOOOMM!! BOOOOOSH!!!

Like falling dominos, hundreds of ships fire and shots ring in unison and hit some of the oncoming men in black, however it also hits the adjourning ships and the water; the end result is pandemonium.

Wooden chunks of vessels scatter about, along with the limbs of those unfortunate enough to be too close to the edge. The pillars of sails topple over and crush others before landing in the sea in a big splash. Tightly winded ropes and cables shred and rip people apart.

Imagine hundreds of ten pound balls zooming at you faster than the speed of sound, imagine being defenseless as they approach, imagine how many different ways you can die.

Now imagine that kind of destruction on a scale covering the likes of the largest invasion force in the history of the world. Sure, not all of the million man Armada is caught in the mayhem, but that doesn’t make the sight and sounds of such horrors any less significant.

The plumes of whitewash and heavy smoke obstruct their vision and make any kind of accurate shot impossible. The cannon fire continues, and the more it does the less damage it’s doing to the opposing forces, and the more is dealt to themselves. Ships begin lighting on fire and some of the more heavily damaged ones begin to sink. The monsters in black use the distraction of the madness to further make their way onto the ships virtually unimpeded.

After a few moments, the cannon fire steadily slows to a stop one ship at a time; be that from friendly fire blasting into them or the swarm of inhuman monsters, it only took a couple minutes for it all to stop. Now that their momentary lapse in judgment ends, a new kind of terror ensues on the ship decks.

If the monsters’ strength wasn’t enough to frighten them, how they are being killed surely sends a ripple of fear over the million man Armada barreling through like a tidal wave. All it takes for the men in black to defeat them is a slight of hand, and the ensuing motion pulls or pushes out a bright colored orb that floats above and dashes into the smoky sky. The lifeless bodies of the crewmen fall limply to the wooden deck directly afterwards.

Without the guns needed to protect themselves, the soldiers of WORLD are forced into hand to hand combat with these things; swords and shields won’t do nearly enough to stop them and they are quickly engulfed.

Looking at all this from atop the bow of her ship is Seiri, she can’t believe how quickly well over a hundred ships were taken over; and judging by how big of a target her particular vessel is, it’s only a matter of time before a swarm double the size of any other attempts to seize hers as well.

Being a 12 year old girl, her small body limits her ability to fight in close quarters, her specialty is bombs, not hand to hand combat; so if it came down to it she’s likely the weakest person in the entire army in that regard.

If those monsters board her ship, she’d be one of the first ones killed.

“Crap!” she hisses, and then rushes to the Captain’s cabin at the back of the ships; winding her way through dozens of her fellow seaman preparing for battle.

Once inside she tosses aside all the paperwork and battle plans used as the blueprint for a successful invasion right off her desk; paperwork that was once so important has now become utterly useless.

Frantically searching through the mess, she finally catches sight of what she was looking for and quickly grabs it.

It’s a little golden key.

She then dashes to the other side of the room and uses the key to open the lock on a small compartment connected to a large cabinet. From there she grabs a decorative looking weapon and a leather bag.

The weapon is a double barreled handgun with a large barrel on the bottom which is three times larger than the one on the top, and it gun looks more like a rifle in comparison to Seiri’s body size; it’s quite heavy and she doubts she’d be able to shoot it without the use of both hands. So she ties the leather bag to the belt on her waist and proceeds to carefully pull out the contents inside; she grabs two different sized transparent looking balls of metal and steadies her breath as she loads each ball into the each respective barrel.

In order to keep the balls from simply sliding out, she has to pull on a lever in the middle of the gun that secures the ammo in the barrel until it’s ready to fire; once the trigger is pulled the lever slides down and the projectiles can be shot forth.

Such a small little mechanism is absolutely crucial considering what those balls actually are; if those fell to the ground there is a very high possibility that Seiri’s limbs would go flying.

These aren’t regular bullets, they are Seiri’s special bombs, miniaturized to a size suitable to be fired out of the custom weapon Celestia built for her.

Of course, this decorative looking gun isn’t just any regular gun, having it custom from Celestia means that there’s a lot more to it than just that. And what makes this particular weapon different from every other, including Allia’s magnetic rifle, is the fact that this is an air pistol.

If Seiri’s bombs were shot forth by the contained blast of gunpowder like a normal gun, she’d simply blow up with the weapon. Unless there’s a very protective outer layer of thick metal like the cannonballs fired earlier from this ship, there’s nothing that can contain the combustible fluid inside the shell from igniting, especially not a transparent form of thin metal that she’s used as a replacement.

So by being shot with compressed air, the ball is pushed forward instead blasted forward, this creates a different kind of sound of the gunshot compared to its counterpart, yet it still delivers the bullet at pretty much the same speed. There’s a special fluid that Seiri stumbled upon while in the process of making the cannonballs and Celestia came up with the idea to use it in a much more convenient manner.

That of which, being a gas-spring.

Instead of a mechanical spring, the liquid gas is stored in a separate chamber built into the piston that begins to heat up and pressurize once the lever at the top of the hand is cocked. A portion of that liquid gas is compressed within the barrel behind the bullet, and upon the squeezing of the trigger, the friction becomes so great that the gas is heated to such an extent that it becomes compressed nitrogen.

That in turn expels the bullet by pushing it forward in a pocket of air, keeping the thin shell of her ammunition from shattering before it hits its target.

As soon as she finished loading her weapon, the popping sounds of gunshots are heard on the other side of the door leading out to the deck. Judging by how fierce and how quickly the rounds are going off, she assumes that dozens of enemies have made their way onto the ship.

As soon as she walks through that door, she’s going to be thrown into a close quarters battlefield.
One should expect a young girl her age would be frightened, but she takes a deep, composed breath and unhesitatingly walks towards the door.

That is, until she hears a thud from behind her.

She quickly turns around and catches sight of a man clad in black, dangling from a beam of the ship just above the large window, glaring at her menacingly.

Seiri doesn’t waste a second, because as soldier she knows that this monster would be right on top of her if she did.

She points her weapon and pulls the first trigger, which is the one that pushes the heated air into the upper chamber and causes the smaller bullet to fire.

BAAANG!

The bullet hits and glass and,

BBBOOOOMMMM!!!!

The glass wall violently explodes out in a torrent of flames so bright it stung Seiri’s eyes momentarily, and once the fog of her hazy vision cleared she can see that all that’s left of the man in black is s red puff of vapor pluming alongside the smoke and glass falling to the sea.

That bullet literally evaporated the monster in black.

“Oaaahaa! How bout that I tell ya!?” Seiri can hardly contain her excitement as she jumped up and down like a child.

She pulls another small ball from the pouch on her side and reloads the upper chamber of her gun; she wants to make sure that she’s prepared before heading out into the bloody battlefield. And as of now she’s a hell of a lot more confident.

She smiles as she rushes through the door.

But her smile is quickly wiped off her face when right away she’s met face to face with a man in black; she’s lucky she has quick reflexes cause she is able to point her gun at him before he can close in on her.

However, she’s not stupid enough to just fire without the repercussions of her actions flashing in her mind the split second before her trigger finger squeezes. She saw the destructive force of her last shot, if she fires at such a close range she almost surely will get caught in the blast.

That little moment of doubt was all it took for the shining hand of the man to be just inches from her face.

“!!”

SHLLUNK!

That’s when his hand is lopped off and sent flying.

Haas came in at the last second and saved his young captain.

He then kicks the man in black so hard that he flies back far enough to where Seiri can take the shot; she regains her composure and shoots the man square in the chest, blowing his body parts in every which way and sending his shredded black outfit into the sky like falling confetti.

Seiri again smiles brightly, even though she barely escaped certain death, she just can’t get over how powerful her weapon is.

Her smile is not lost on Haas, who thinks this is no time to be distracted. He forcefully grabs her from under her arms and tosses her over his shoulder.

“Whaaa!? What are you doing??”

“…Retreat…”

“Retreat!?”

From the high view atop Haas, she can clearly see why he said such a thing.

Even with the guns and the elite training, the crew of this ship are getting crushed. The guns seem to hold no affect, the monsters just keep coming; and the orbs of light continue swirling all about before rising into the air.

The screams of her comrades were lost on her during her adrenaline rush, but now she can hear it loud and clear, and now she can fully grasp the situation she’s found herself in.

How long did she take to get her new weapon? She thinks it couldn’t have been more than minute or two, yet that was all it took for the men in black to overwhelm the mothership of the Armada. If things continue on this pace, there really might be a good shot that the entire invasion force will be wiped out before they even land on Trojan soil.

Yet something is wrong here, the men in black who so easily took over her ship aren’t making their way to the next one like they were earlier. Instead, they begin pulling on the ropes and setting sail due west, and as another mans the crank with ease, another one mans the captain’s wheel, turning shudders to the left by spinning the wheel to the right.

Seiri get’s a horrid feeling in her gut as Haas carries her toward the bow she was so dangerously playing on a few days earlier. This doesn’t look like a force of monsters looking to wipe them out, it looks more like a colony of bees programmed to do a certain job and sting whatever’s in the way.

“Haas, they’re not here to defend Troy…” Seiri said as if realizing something.

At that very moment, Haas jumps off the bow and Seiri gets a final look at the deck of WORLD’s largest ship before falling towards the ocean.

“They’re here to take our ship!”

SPLASH!!

The two take the almost 40 foot drop into the water, the impact knocked the wind out of Seiri and when Haas swam the two of them back to the surface, she took a huge breath to catch the breath that was stolen from her.

As straight faced as ever, Haas swims past the body parts and debris with his young captain in tow, and he’s doing so quite quickly at that.

“Haas!” She shouts his name again, trying to inform him about what she thinks she’s found out.

But before she could, Haas firmly says, “…I know…”

“You know?”

“…Look…”

Haas gestures her to look further out towards the rest of the Armada, and upon doing so Seiri’s suspicions become a reality. Almost a hundred ships are now sailing away from the rest of the invasion force and towards the open ocean, away from the shores of Troy.

The other ships untouched by the battle are firing upon the fleeing ships, but the few times they hit, they aren’t doing enough damage to stop them. It’s very difficult to turn ships to aim the cannons, it takes dozens of men all doing different jobs to do it, and that takes time. The other vessels of the invasion force obviously didn’t expect this to happen, so they couldn’t react in time.

All they can do is watch as the hundred ships, some of which are still burning from friendly cannon fire, slowly sail away towards the western horizon. This includes Seiri and Haas’s ship, the mother ship, the very identity of this Armada.

“Did we really just fall into a trap?” Seiri said with a sigh.

“…Yes…”

The two watch the mass of their ship shrink as it sails further away whilst they are left there floating, clinging to some wooden debris.

“Well, I hate to say it but we’ve been had. I don’t know what those things are, but Satan obviously knew we were bound to show up on Troy’s shores eventually. He must’ve had them wait it out for us to arrive.”

“…Yes…”

“The reason why we didn’t see any kind of naval presence in the open waters was likely because of this very trap. That batch of Trojan ships we destroyed a few days back wasn’t a reconnaissance brigade, it wasn’t anything of the sort.”

“…Yes…”

“They were bait.”

Haas definitely knows where she’s going with this, he actually guessed what was going on before she even left the Captain’s room. There were too many signs pointing in the opposite direction of defense for him not to notice.

“If they didn’t return, the men on the shore knew where we were coming from, and when we were coming. They may not have known how great our numbers were, which would explain why there’s still so many of us left; but that’s not of their concern.”

“…They got… What… They wanted…”

“That’s right…” Seiri grits her teeth and says, “They got their navy.”

“…Yes…”

“And what’s worse, we gave them an open path directly to La’Juune. Their trap couldn’t have worked out any better all things considered, I’m sure they didn’t guess that we exhausted our entire naval force on this invasion. What a damn blunder.”

She knows that whatever those things are, who were outnumbered 300 to 1 yet still managed to violently commandeer and destroy over a hundred ships out of fleet of 5 thousand, will be able to inflict enough damage on La’Juune to topple it to the ground.

“London is sure going to have a hard time with those guys…” She again sighs, this time rather loudly, “I don’t know how long our defenses can last against that much firepower; not to mention those freaks in black.”

“…We…Can…Still win…”

As dejected as she is, she knows that WORLD’s invasion force may have lost hundreds of ships and thousands of men, it’s still less than 10% of everyone here. In fact, she halfway assumed she’d lose close to that many people during the initial landing anyways, so it’s not like she’s out of options and has to retool her plans. Now that there’s going to be no one to stop her and her army from docking and making their way towards the Capital, she’s left with no choice but to continue as planned.

“You’re right… But.”

She lifts her custom weapon out of the water and proceeds to latch herself to Haas’s back.

Using him as a base, she aims out in the distance and says, “It doesn’t mean I’m going to let them get away with my ship.”

Since her gun is fired off of compressed air squeezed out from liquid gas in a contained canister, she’s confident that she can still fire without any problems, so she takes careful aim at the only part of the bow she can still see.

She doesn’t have the steady hands or the skills of a marksmen like Allia, so she’s not confident that she’ll hit her target, but if she does, the entire ship will blow up magnificently.

The reason is because she’s aiming at the bastion room containing all of her specially modified shells; there’s dozens of them in there, and even though that room is well protected for obvious reasons, she knows that under intense heat, they’ll blow eventually.

She just wants to have any kind of flame reach the inside of that room, and the largest ship in the world won’t be going very far. She’s just hoping that her special weapon and bullet can inflict that much damage.

Seiri and the ship are about 300 yards apart, and the further it moves away towards the west, the smaller the target on the bow gets.

“Here goes nothing!”

She pulls both triggers at once, which releases the gas into the upper chamber and,

BAAAAAANNNGG!!

Her tiny little arms are blown back and if not for her firm grip on Haas’s torso with her legs, both her and the gun would’ve went for a swim.

“Did I??”

BOOOOOMMM!!!

The bullet veered off target and hit the middle of the ship about 100 feet away from the bow and the bastion room, and though the explosion was very large, it wasn’t near enough to sink such a massive ship.

“Uaaah I missed!”

Voicing her displeasure, she shifts to showing it by beating and Haas’s poor back when…

BBAABBBBOOOMMMM!!!!

The starboard side of the ship exploded violently; the windows for the dozens of cannons, and the gaps in the wood where the gallows once were, spew out smoke and flame like a volcano.

BBBBBBAAAAAAAASSSHHHHHH!!!!!

The entire stern of the ship that holds the captain’s room is blown out like the end of a balloon after someone had viciously stomped on it.

BBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!

If those two blasts weren’t enough, the last one is so loud and so bright it rips the ocean water as though a meteor had just landed in it. That last blast was the bastion room filled to the brim with all the specially crafted ammunition Seiri brought along with her; the resulting explosion produced bright hot colors like purple and green, and an orange so bright it hurts the eyes. The heat is felt on their skin like they had stuck their head in an oven.

If not for their faces being wet from sea water, there’s a very good chance that would have burned them so badly it would’ve left a scar.

Seiri pays no mind to that intense heat and looks on in amazement. If that wasn’t the definition of a light show, she doubts she’ll ever experience one. The many different sensations that blast caused made her drool in excitement.

“Did you see that did you see that!?? Wowowowowwow!!

“…Yes…”

“C’mon Haas show some excitement will ya?? That was incredible!”

She knows full well that Haas can’t physically express emotion, but even if he could he wouldn’t show it in this situation. A sizable chunk of their invasion force was just wiped out, and now those freakishly powerful enemies are sailing towards the La’Juutian Capital with no one there to stop them. If London’s defenses don’t hold them off long enough for WORLD’s forces to somehow defeat Satan, this invasion turns into one massive suicide mission; they’d be stranded at Satan’s foot with no home to retreat to if all else fails.

He can clearly see that their position is awfully bleak.

“…We…Must hurry…”

Seiri, still beaming from the aftermath of her explosion remains silent as she watches the dark smoke rise into the sky; she’s feigning ignorance to the reality of this all. She may be a child, but she’s also one of the ten most elite soldiers in La’Juune, she understands the consequences of today’s events, but chooses to ignore them until she can actually do something about it.

And as soon as she lets herself relax, the time to do something about all this comes in the form of a lifesaver landing in the water right next to them. One of the smaller vessels spotted them floating about as they were sailing by and came to their rescue; as soon as Ebihara Seiri and Haas Avondale grab this lifesaver and rejoin the others, it’s crunch time.

They’re now in a race with those monsters in black to each other’s respective Capitals.

WORLD must reach Troy’s Capital and defeat Satan first.

If La’Juune’s Capital is lost first, the demons and those monsters can turn back and enclose WORLD’s forces deep in Troy.

And that applies for them as well.

However, if they fail once they get there, all is lost. The stakes just got a little higher.

Haas grabs the rope, Seiri still latched on his back; the two of them are pulled out of the water and slowly make their way up the side of the ship when Haas asks, “…Orders..?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” She says with a stern smile, “There comes a time in every actor's life where one messes up a line or two in a play. But as they say, the show must go on! Let's attack the Capital of Troy!”







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