The inexplicable shadow sweeping over the crowd made everyone look up.
A colossal object suddenly emerged from what had been an empty patch of sky, seemingly forcing its way out of the transparent air itself.
It was a warship, one unlike anything they had ever seen.
It clearly was not designed to sail across the ocean. Its contours were completely unsuited for traveling on water.
The vessel even appeared to have wings, making it obvious that it had been built to fly through the atmosphere and across space.
Judging by sight alone, it was roughly three hundred meters long and more than a hundred meters wide.
After shedding its optical camouflage, the futuristic warship tilted its massive hull upward.
Its pointed bow angled toward the sky. The tip split open vertically like a bird's beak, revealing what appeared to be the muzzle of a cannon.
Electrical arcs crackled inside the exposed barrel. It seemed to be devouring the surrounding light, causing the clear, sunlit afternoon to gradually darken.
"Is it planning to shoot down the Landing Castles entering Earth's atmosphere?"
Inko murmured in astonishment.
Looking skyward, she could see several glowing points. Those were the Landing Castles already forcing their way through the atmosphere.
Could that warship really shoot them down?
She could not help doubting it.
The warship was unquestionably enormous by human standards, but compared to a Landing Castle, a colossal fusion of spacecraft and fortress, it was like comparing a house cat to a massive tiger.
Could a house cat's roar possibly overpower the king of beasts?
"Can that really destroy one?"
Nina did not sound optimistic. Even her light chestnut twin tails seemed to droop along with her gloomy mood.
Yuki and Marito, who overheard the two girls, had their doubts as well.
Marito was especially skeptical. Fifteen years earlier, he had personally witnessed the power of the Martian Kataphrakts.
It was a power that inspired absolute despair.
No matter what weapons struck them, the attacks had no effect. They simply vanished, like stones sinking beneath the ocean.
The Martian machines clearly possessed some kind of special field or defensive barrier.
"Princess, can it really shoot them down?"
Even Eddelrittuo sounded uncertain.
"It can."
Asseylum had already witnessed the weapon's power. She remembered that Mars possessed nothing capable of stopping it.
If anything, she was worried its terrifying destructive force might frighten the people of Earth.
However, other weapons might not be capable of destroying a Landing Castle outright.
Destroying one meant that nearly every living person aboard would be killed.
"Princess? Princess! If it really can destroy them, then you don't need to feel guilty. Those people were already trying to kill you!"
Despite her young age, Eddelrittuo had remained at the princess's side for many years. From the smallest changes in Asseylum's expression, she could tell that the princess was struggling with the idea of personally killing her own people, even though they had threatened her life.
No, that was wrong. Those people were no longer their own.
The moment they betrayed and attempted to assassinate the princess to provoke a war between Mars and Earth, they ceased to be allies. They had become deranged enemies of humanity.
They deserved whatever happened to them.
In Eddelrittuo's opinion, only a handful of Mars's thirty-seven noble houses were remotely decent.
The nobles squandered resources and indulged in every luxury imaginable, while ordinary Martian citizens struggled through lives of hardship.
Even if they conquered Earth and seized its resources, most of those resources would flow into the hands of the ruling class. Little would change for those at the bottom.
"Prin..."
Eddelrittuo was about to continue comforting her when she suddenly fell silent in fright.
The sky had abruptly grown much darker. It was as if nearly all the surrounding light had been swallowed by the warship's cannon, creating something resembling a black hole within its barrel.
"Commander, the meteor shower is almost here!"
"Shoot it down."
Mr. Kain, whom the princess treated with such remarkable courtesy, issued the command with casual indifference.
The darkened sky instantly became brighter than daylight.
The flash was so intense that everyone felt as though it might blind them.
Once their eyes adjusted, they saw a deep-blue beam rip across the sky. It crossed dozens of kilometers in an instant and slammed into the fortress plunging through the atmosphere.
"Did... did it miss?"
Nina was the first to break the silence.
The beam had passed straight through the atmosphere and continued into space. It looked as though it had completely missed its target.
Otherwise, why would it appear to have struck nothing at all?
"No. It hit."
Inaho, who rarely spoke, answered in a voice tinged with fear.
Based on intelligence collected during the war fifteen years earlier, he possessed a rough understanding of the Landing Castles' strength. He had even calculated how much destructive force would be needed to eliminate one in a single strike.
Even a nuclear weapon would need to reach a certain yield, and it would still have to score a direct hit.
Yet the beam had passed through the Landing Castle without slowing down in the slightest. It was as if the enormous fortress had been made of foam.
For a weapon to accomplish that, its destructive power had to be beyond anything he could imagine.
Inaho could not calculate its exact output, but he was certain of one thing.
That weapon absolutely could not be fired at Earth's surface.
He suspected a direct hit might cause violent shifts throughout an entire continental plate.
"It hit?"
Nina murmured.
The beam had already disappeared, and the burning sphere that had been falling toward the ground was gone.
In its place was what appeared to be a massive hole visible to the naked eye.
Only the sharp contrast between the opening and the surrounding blue sky made it possible to see.
"There's a hole in the sky."
"It looks like the sky itself was shattered."
The high school students' whispers reached Marito and Yuki.
Their description was surprisingly accurate. An unmistakable hole had been punched through the sky, making the atmosphere resemble a punctured balloon as air rushed toward the opening.
The atmosphere was normally invisible, but the abnormal movement of the clouds revealed what was happening.
The hole seemed to be leaking air into space. Clouds streamed toward it until enough had gathered to cover the opening from view.
The attack had almost certainly punctured the atmosphere itself.
Yuki swallowed hard.
Calling that level of destructive power frightening did not even begin to describe it.
"Lieutenant, what kind of weapon is that?"
"I have no idea."
"Then do you know what would happen if an attack capable of that kind of penetration and destruction struck the surface?"
"No."
How could Marito possibly know?
He only knew that the consequences would be horrific.
Then something occurred to him, and both his and Yuki's expressions changed dramatically.
"There's no need to worry. The Orbital Knights don't possess a weapon like this."
The princess noticed their concern and reassured them, allowing both officers to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Can it fire all the way to the Moon?"
"The Orbital Knights have an important base there. If you destroyed it too, you could deal them a devastating blow!"
The suggestions from the two male students caused the princess's expression to shift slightly.
"I'm sorry, but we can't do that."
"You two, stop talking nonsense!"
Yuki shouted at them. They were getting far too presumptuous.
"I'm sorry. If destroying the lunar base could stop the Orbital Knights, I would want it destroyed as well. However, we cannot use the Wave-Motion Gun against the lunar base."
"Huh? Why not?"
The somewhat airheaded Nina immediately followed up with another question.
"Because its firepower is a little excessive. It might knock what remains of the Moon down onto Earth. Do you want to test it?"
The words almost sounded like a joke, yet Kain's tone remained perfectly flat, giving them a chilling quality.
This was the man whom the princess treated with such courtesy, and he was also the one truly commanding the warship's attacks.
The instant he finished speaking, the Wave-Motion Gun completed charging for a second time and fired again, destroying another Landing Castle.
That fortress had descended closer to Earth's surface, making its destruction somewhat easier to see with the naked eye.
It looked even more fragile than porcelain. The moment the beam struck, the entire fortress shattered.
The sight was breathtaking.
The beam that destroyed it punched another hole through the atmosphere.
The blue column of energy then continued into space, seemingly brushing past the Moon on the horizon.
If Kain had been telling the truth, had that shot nearly plunged the entire world into hell?
An icy chill spread from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads.
Nearly everyone present felt it.
(End of Chapter)
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