"Aboard! Quickly! Aboard!"
"Five minutes! We depart in exactly five minutes!"
Amfielice's battleship was a teeming mass of humanity, a sea of desperate souls clawing for salvation.
Soldiers on the front lines had succumbed to utter panic the moment their officers inadvertently leaked words like encirclement and annihilation. Trapped in a fever of terror, they fought with savage desperation to gain a footing on the deck.
"Please! I beg of you!"
"Out of my way! I'm getting on first!"
"Lord, forgive us... please...!"
The tide of bodies surged forward until the battleship's deck groaned under the impossible weight, appearing as though it might burst at the seams.
The non-commissioned officers shouted over the din.
"We cannot take any more! We must depart now or we'll never make speed!"
Amfielice Windermere stood at the prow, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles were white.
Below her, a wretched tableau of ill-fated soldiers, sergeants, and officers were tangled together in a screaming heap.
"Do you know who I am? I am a Baron! See the crest on my tunic! Please, let me on!"
"No! Close the hatches! If we take one more, we'll be too slow to escape!"
The metal plating rattled, and the heavy covers began to slide into place, sealing the ship.
At that moment, a soldier with a face masked in blood sprinted toward the vessel, his voice cracking with desperation.
"Lady Amfielice! Please! My comrades are still there! Just behind me! One minute! Just give us one minute—!"
Amfielice grit her teeth, the sound of grinding bone echoing in her own skull.
Behind that soldier, she saw them: three, four, five more men crawling through the frozen mire. They were carrying the wounded on their shoulders, dragging the limp, lifeless forms of their brothers-in-arms through the industrial filth.
The sight threatened to tear her heart asunder, but a singular, brutal reality weighed upon her soul.
If she opened those doors now, everyone would die.
She, and every soul aboard that steel behemoth, believed one thing with absolute certainty: the rebels would show no mercy. They would not leave a single survivor.
They would do exactly what their motherland, Victoria, had done to its enemies for centuries.
With a hollow heart, she made her decision.
"...Proceed with the departure."
The chief engineer nodded solemnly. An earth-shaking vibration rumbled through the hull as the battleship's propulsion systems groaned to life. The engines spun up, and the Originium reactors roared with a deafening howl. Slowly, the massive vessel began to pull away, leaving Birmingham behind.
In that instant, the last soldier who had been waving his hand collapsed to his knees.
He said nothing.
He simply looked up at the gray, indifferent sky and closed his eyes.
Beside him, another man let out a piercing shriek of betrayal.
"You traitors! Are you truly abandoning us?! Are you leaving us to die—?!"
But the battleship was already underway, cutting through the air and land. Amfielice turned her back to the railing. She did not scream. She shed no tears. She merely closed her eyes and whispered into the wind.
"...I am sorry."
Scarcely a minute after the ship cleared the city's perimeter, a lookout's voice cut through the silence like a blade.
"E-Enemy battleships! Dozens of them! They're coming over the ridge!"
"That's impossible... they outnumber us? We really were about to be encircled?"
The fleet of the People's Army had arrived.
Monsters made of iron and spite, belching thick, black smoke from their chimneys as they maneuvered into position. They looked like scrap metal welded onto mobile city platforms—grotesque and utilitarian—but their purpose was unmistakably martial.
Amfielice gasped. One by one, the soldiers on the deck fell silent. No one spoke. No one dared to shout.
The People's Army fleet was accelerating. Dozens of ships sounded their sirens—low, guttural bellows that vibrated in the chests of the fleeing nobles—and began a full-speed charge toward the aristocratic fleet.
— BWAAAAAA! BWAAAAAAAA—! —
"Contact the flagship! Alert the flagship! They're going to ram! The enemy is using ramming tactics!"
The signal corps worked their keys with frantic speed, but the flagship did not respond.
The Great Victoria.
A relic of a bygone era, carrying the pride of the Kingdom with its ornate armor, intricate carvings, and fluttering banners. Upon its decks... there was no movement. No counter-fire. No redirection of its massive guns.
It was only then that Amfielice felt the cold hand of dread tighten around her throat.
"Why... why aren't they firing back...?"
Her lips trembled.
"Father...? Surely you..."
In that moment, a thunderous roar tore through every sense.
To the port side, an aristocratic battleship took a direct hit—not from a shell, but from a hull. A People's Army ship, moving with terrifying momentum, slammed into its side. With the sheer force of its mass and speed, it literally pulverized the noble vessel.
— SKREEEEEEEEEE! CRRRUUUUUUSSSHHH!!!! —
"Arrgh! My ears!"
With a horrifying screech of metal upon metal, a revolutionary ship executed a perfect ramming maneuver against the anchored noble vessel. The sheer velocity of the strike sent shockwaves through the entire fleet.
And then, the sound they had heard hundreds of times over the past day erupted again.
— BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! —
— RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! —
It was the roar of light cannons and the rhythmic discharge of rifles. All these sounds merged into a violent dissonance, a symphony of destruction written in the blood of the high-born.
Like a pod of whales surging through the ocean, the People's Army ships collided, sheared through lines, and charged relentlessly. At the center of their focus was the Great Victoria.
"...No. No, no, no, no, no...!!" Amfielice whispered.
The magnificent flagship remained stationary. Its banners were tattered, and its heavy main guns were still pointed proudly toward the horizon, but there was no sign of preparation, no readiness for a counter-attack.
And then...
— SKREEEEEE! —
— BOOM! CRASH! CRASH! —
The flagship was struck. Its port side was torn open. A magazine ignited, belching a massive pillar of fire and smoke into the sky. And aboard that ship...
Amfielice collapsed to her knees. She couldn't even draw a breath. Only a single word escaped her parched throat.
"...Father...?"
***********************************************************
"Impact!"
— THUD! —
"Fire the cannons!"
— BOOM! —
The People's Army rarely relied on heavy artillery. Composed largely of unskilled laborers, the revolutionary force lacked the technical expertise to handle such complex machinery effectively. They could not hope to match the proficiency of the noble coalition's artillery crews, who had decades of practical experience, with just a few months of training.
Instead, the People's Army chose a different path. They relied on sheer volume: countless infantry guns and light cannons loaded with grapeshot.
Grapeshot was a weapon that required little aim; as long as it was pointed toward the enemy, it would find its mark.
"Gah—!"
"Aargh! My arm! My arm is gone!"
The clouds of lead fired by a mob of workers tore through mercenaries who had spent their lives honing their craft. The term 'torn' was neither hyperbole nor metaphor. Limbs were severed, and bodies were reduced to flying pulp in an instant.
Several noble soldiers collapsed, vomiting at the sheer, grotesque horror of the carnage. The grapeshot swept through the noble ranks, shattering their shield walls in a heartbeat. Once the formation was broken, the revolutionaries brought forward the organ guns and rifles.
"Fire!"
"Don't leave a single one standing! We only need enough prisoners to fill the quotas later! Kill the rest!"
A relentless staccato of gunfire followed. Soldiers of the nobility fell in heaps. By the time they had cycled through two reloads, the People's Army initiated the final charge.
"Charge!!"
"Full speed ahead!"
Commissars and officers blew their whistles, and thousands of armed workers stormed the enemy vessels. The youth of the Soviet, waving red flags, swarmed the aristocratic decks. Because their numbers were so vastly superior, the wave of revolutionary soldiers simply erased the scattered opposition.
One worker charged a noble soldier holding a heavy shield, slamming into him with the weight of his entire body. The shield lost its balance for a fraction of a second, and a revolutionary bayonet lunged through the gap. Without a sound, the blade slipped under the gorget of the armor, severing the spinal cord. The knight collapsed, eyes wide and vacant, as his lifeblood soaked the deck.
"They're breaking! Now is our chance!"
"Forward! Push forward!!"
At the company commander's shout, the following soldiers let out a roar and breached the interior of the enemy ship. A group of men smashed the door to the engine room and hurled Molotov cocktails inside.
"Aaaagh! Fire! Fire!!"
"Save me! Help—!"
The chief engineer and dozens of sailors were incinerated where they stood. The People's Army was seizing the ships.
Meanwhile, the crews of several noble ships desperately tried to turn their main batteries toward the boarding craft.
"Faster! Turn it faster!"
"Please! Just one shot!"
The gunners manually cranked the heavy traverse gears with frantic strength. Their prayers went unanswered.
"Gah, no—! Wait! This is—"
— POP! —
An improvised grenade thrown by a revolutionary tumbled into the turret's aperture. The sailors tried to scramble away or throw it back, but time had run out. The grenade detonated, triggering the ready-use ammunition.
Every soul in that turret was instantly killed, shredded by superheated steam, fire, and jagged metal fragments.
In this manner, the battleships—which had been left with skeleton crews while the bulk of the noble forces were bogged down in Birmingham—were systematically overrun.
"These are the bastards who were slaughtering our comrades! Kill them all!"
A laborer's bayonet pierced the throat of a Viscount. A bullet hole opened in the neck of a Caster before they could manifest an Art. Dozens of workers swarmed a heavy knight, beating him to death with the butts of their rifles.
Amidst the momentum of the assault, most of the aristocratic fleet was being seized as prizes of war.
"You commoner filth!!! Get back! Stay away!"
"Does your noble blood make you immune to a knife? Stop babbling if you don't want to die!"
"Hi-eeek! I surrender! I surrender!"
Bridges filled with the incompetent, the indecisive, and the cowardly collapsed as soon as the revolutionaries broke through the doors. Entire command structures were paralyzed. Those who survived chose the only path left to them: surrender.
However, there was one place where the aristocratic pride remained defiant amidst the ruin.
"We rammed it three times! Why hasn't it broken?! They said the magazine blew!"
"Help! We need support! Send reinforcements!"
It was the pride of the Allied Nobility Army: the flagship Great Victoria.
****************************************************
— Father! Father! You have to get out of there! Father! Please...!
Through the miracle of high-grade Victorian engineering, the radio remained functional despite the devastating explosion. The voice of his daughter crackled through the static of the bridge.
The windows of the bridge were shattered. Career officers, the captain, nobles, and guards lay strewn across the floor—some dead, some maimed by metal shards, glass splinters, and grapeshot. A fallen chandelier had crushed several nobles, its crystals now stained a visceral crimson.
The bridge was a literal lake of blood.
"Hnngh..."
"Mother...! Mother...!"
Duke Henry Windermere looked around. He had seen this landscape fifteen years ago on the Leithanien front. That day, when his forces clashed with the hordes of Leithanien. He had been victorious then, but at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
And his beloved wife—a woman far stronger than he—had died before his very eyes. She had thrown away her life to protect him.
But... today was different. Today, the roles were reversed. The war was lost, but he had ensured his daughter—wiser and stronger than he—would live.
Now, he had to do for his daughter what his wife had once done for him.
Only after the haze of the alcohol had cleared, only after his delusions shattered, did he see reality. Amfielice, his precious daughter, had been right all along.
He picked up the radio handset.
"Amfielice, start the recording."
— Father? Is that you? Father! Father!
He drew his sword from its scabbard. The blade that had protected his life for decades. He gripped it and looked into the polished steel. He saw his own reflection—haggard and old. And he saw the phantom of his daughter's face shimmering in the metal.
Was she recording? If she took after her brilliant mother, she would be.
"Amfielice, from this moment forth, you are the Duke of Windermere. With this recording, your succession shall be beyond dispute."
— Father, what are you saying...? Get out of there! Now! Quickly!
He paused. Nearby, the sounds of gunfire, the clashing of steel, screams, the wet thud of limbs being severed, and the roar of explosions were drawing closer. But in his ears, he only heard his daughter's weeping.
A few drops of moisture fell onto his polished boots. Blood seeped from his chest, where a piece of shrapnel he couldn't avoid remained lodged. But he had to endure. He had to stand.
"Amfielice...."
Forgive me, daughter. This pathetic father of yours has only this way left to atone.
"I have nothing else to give you but this. I'm a... bit of a fool of a father, aren't I?"
— Father! Father!
On her end, the voices of soldiers and her own shouting could be heard. She sounded so angry. Finally, he spoke one last sentence, shamelessly seeking a final connection.
"Amfielice... my daughter. I loved you. And I thank you..."
He raised his sword. He pointed it toward the bridge doors.
Just then, the doors burst open.
"Secure the bridge!"
"All hands surrender! This battleship is now the property of the Soviet!"
The enemy had arrived.
I'm sorry, Amfielice. Your father won't be coming home. So....
"Gah!"
"Wh-What? He's too fast—!"
"Save me! Help—!"
As he moved, over a dozen enemies were cut down. Some were maimed, others lost their lives instantly. This was war, and he no longer cared for the cost.
"I'm going now."
And so he departed. Duke Henry Windermere left the bridge. He left behind a room filled only with the moans of the dying. There was no one left standing on that bridge.
— Father! Father...! ... Dad.... please come back... please....
From the abandoned radio, only the cries of a girl searching for her father echoed through the charnel house.
********************************************************
He was not a man.
The moment Duke Windermere vanished from the bridge and appeared in the corridors of the battleship, the People's Army soldiers froze in terror, as if they had come face-to-face with Death itself.
"Shoot! I said shoot!"
"The bullets... the bullets aren't stopping him?!"
A ceaseless torrent of lead was directed at him. He dodged some, and others missed by a hair's breadth. A few lucky shots hit home, but they either glanced off his ornate armor or were deflected by his sword with inhuman speed.
"M-Monster...!"
There, in the narrow confines of the ship, stood a reaper of the battlefield. With every swing of his blade, three, five, six men were thrown back, their bodies cleaved apart. A soldier with a bayonet charged, but Henry Windermere merely rotated his wrist, parrying the strike and using the momentum to rip the soldier's chest open, splitting him in two.
"Did you truly believe you could stop me? Behold the Sword of the Kingdom."
A soldier with Originium crystals sprouting from his shoulder and a blood-soaked cap stumbled back, shouting to those behind him.
"Fall back! Fall back!"
The contagion of fear began to spread. The same soldiers who had been roaring with revolutionary fervor just moments ago lost all will to fight in the face of such singular, overwhelming martial power. An anonymous commissar threw a Molotov cocktail that shattered against Windermere's shoulder, but the Duke continued to advance, wreathed in flames.
A shadow walking through the fire. Slaughter, slaughter, and more slaughter.
"Dammit... are we really going to die here..."
"Three whole ships, and we're being wiped out by one man..."
That was when George and Brooks moved. George was clutching his arm, which was still embedded with shrapnel, but Brooks shook him by the shoulder.
"Sergeant! Sergeant!! That gun! On the right! That secondary battery isn't broken!"
George looked up. He saw a rattling barrel—a secondary gun intended for fending off smaller craft.
"Is it loaded?"
"Um... ah! This shell looks like it fits the barrel size! It must be!"
"Hey, didn't they teach you at the training center to use formal military speech with your superiors... Ha, forget it. Just load it quickly."
"Yes, Sergeant!"
Brooks wiped the sweat from her brow. George grit his teeth. He stared at the monster walking across the deck and whispered under his breath.
"Even so... we've come this far. Our comrades have given everything for us to get here."
He grabbed the firing handle and began to aim.
"Elevation set."
"Bearing locked."
Brooks placed her hand on the breech. "Ready to fire!"
George gave the handle a final, desperate tug. "Fire!"
— KABOOOOM!!! —
The shell from the secondary battery flew true, slamming directly into Henry Windermere's flank. His armor shattered, and flesh was flayed from his side. His right arm was broken, and a massive gouge was torn into his side.
He fell to one knee.
"Cough... haa, haa...."
A soldier on the deck let out a cry of triumph.
"He's down! The enemy has fallen!!!"
With that one shot, the morale of the soldiers was resurrected. The revolutionaries who had been fleeing like beaten dogs began to lift their heads. A man with a bayoneted rifle roared.
"Now! Strike him down!!"
"The bastard bleeds like any other man! He was just lucky until now, but a bullet kills him just the same!"
"Avenge our fallen comrades!!"
Dozens of rifles were leveled in a single direction. Henry Windermere, the last noble left in Birmingham. A war hero of the Kingdom. The most noble of men.
— BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! —
A hail of lead rained down upon him. Bullets buried themselves in his chest, his shoulders, his legs, and his eyes. He slumped further onto his knees, and finally, he sat back in the silence.
Quietly, amidst the stillness of his fading world, he looked up at the sky one last time.
"...Amfielice."
With a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips, he bowed his head. The last Duke fell.
"Now! Hoist the flag!"
"Seize the bridge! Everyone forward!"
"Where is the flag?! Where is the banner?!"
"Take the photo! One! Two! Three!"
And so, upon the last battleship anchored at Birmingham, the banner of the enemy was raised. The red flag fluttered high against the wintry sky.