“Bastard!!”
Inside the Joint Government Countermeasures Headquarters, a Defense Ministry official who had witnessed the scene slammed the table and stood up, his eyes bloodshot.
No need for any complicated legal explanations.
Killing an envoy of peace, in any era, is a declaration of war that will not end until one side is dead.
“All forces attack! Blow that island to pieces!!”
“Wizard-01, roger. Rules of engagement lifted, all weapons free.”
“Wizard-02, roger.”
With the operation of the two Shinshin, twelve “Undead” drones that had been hiding behind the clouds simultaneously ignited their afterburners.
Blue tail flames tore through the night sky as they dove down like a meteor shower.
“Fox 3! Fox 3!”
Dozens of medium-range air-to-air missiles capable of targeting Espers left white smoke trails and howled toward the Emergent Bodies above the island.
“Enemy attack!”
The Oath Society reacted just as quickly—the aircraft already circling the island began firing air-launched missiles.
The carrier anchored offshore was still launching older Rafale and Typhoon fighters.
Meanwhile, the Espers hovering in the air displayed astonishing combat power.
Facing the incoming rain of missiles, an Esper who could control magnetic fields spread his hands.
An invisible magnetic field instantly enveloped half the airspace.
The missiles that relied on radar guidance, the moment they entered the magnetic field, all lost their seekers, flying around like headless flies, some even self-destructing in midair.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The night sky was lit up by the flash of explosions.
“Tch, as expected, it’s not that easy.”
The Shinshin pilot snorted, his hands flying over the virtual interface.
“Dogfight!”
The drones that had been moving stiffly, the moment they received the command, seemed to be infused with souls.
They no longer relied on missiles, but used superhuman overload maneuvers to charge directly into the enemy formation.
The massive F-15J airframe performed overload maneuvers in the air that no human pilot could withstand.
The cannon roared.
An Emergent Body wielding a trident and casting spells didn’t even have time to react before a ghost-like F-4EJ cut in and shot it down with its 20mm cannon. Mamba out.
The Oath Society’s fighters tried to intercept, but the human pilots’ reactions were far too slow.
In just one engagement, two Rafales were caught on their tails and blown up in midair.
“What a waste of resources. Ymir, air defense mode.”
On the high platform, the Leader looked at the melee in the sky and waved his hand impatiently.
The black mecha floating in the air moved.
The six propulsion wings on its back suddenly opened, revealing dense launch ports.
No missiles were fired.
What was fired was light.
Countless red high-energy laser beams wove into a net of death.
Zzzzzt.
The speed of light was unavoidable.
Three Undead drones that were pursuing enemy aircraft had their wings instantly severed and fell as fireballs.
Then, the cross on Ymir’s head shone with dazzling golden light.
A visible golden ripple spread out from it.
“Warning! Warning! Data link under strong interference!”
The cockpit of the Shinshin flashed red warnings.
“Is that… a wide-area EMP? No, it’s conceptual interference aimed at electronic signals…”
Under the sweep of this golden ripple, the remaining drones instantly slowed down, some even lost control entirely and fell into the sea like stones.
Within Ymir’s domain, conventional technological weapons seemed so fragile.
“Hahahaha! Did you see that, Yuki Asahi!”
The Leader pointed at the sky, laughing wildly.
“This is the power of our revenge! Even if that Witch comes, she’ll be crushed like this scrap metal!”
Yuki Asahi remained silent.
But as he looked at that invincible mecha, his brow furrowed slightly.
‘Such power… really exceeded his estimates.’
‘If it comes down to a one-on-one fight, can Jiang Jian Yue really win?’
Just as the situation in the air was turning one-sided, and the first wave of air power sent by the Joint Government was about to be completely annihilated—
“Wizard-01, this is the AWACS ‘All-Seeing Eye’.”
The trembling voice of the rear AWACS suddenly came through the comm channel.
“What is it? Do we need to retreat?”
“No… detected… detected an object entering the atmosphere at extremely high speed!”
“Is it a meteor?”
“No! Ballistic calculations show… it was fired from the west! Distance… over 1,000 kilometers from here!”
“1,000 kilometers? What kind of gun can fire 1,000 kilometers? A missile?”
“Speed… Mach 25! No! Still accelerating! Mach 30!”
Mach 30.
That was already the terminal velocity of an intercontinental ballistic missile re-entering the atmosphere.
But the radar signature showed it was just a… shell.
A solid shell.
Time seemed to slow down at that moment.
All the clamor, explosions, and engine sounds on the battlefield seemed to be drowned out by an even grander sound.
It was a howling that tore heaven and earth apart.
The smile froze on the Leader’s face.
Ymir’s sensors screamed in alarm, its head spinning toward the west, trying to lock onto the incoming threat.
It raised its arms, layering energy shields one after another in front of it.
Golden runes flashed frantically, and power output instantly reached maximum.
“Defense! Full defense!!” the Leader screamed.
But in the face of absolute speed and kinetic energy, all defense seemed so pale.
A red line appeared at the horizon.
It was the plasma trail caused by the shell’s violent friction with the air.
BOOM.
There was no earth-shattering explosion fireball.
Only a crisp sound of shattering, almost too sharp.
That solid shell from 1,000 kilometers away, carrying enough terrifying kinetic energy to pierce the earth’s crust, precisely struck the shield Ymir had deployed.
First shield, broken.
Second shield, broken.
Third shield, broken.
That proud “Absolute Defense” couldn’t hold for even a second.
Then, the shell pierced through Ymir’s multi-meter thick super-alloy armor.
Pop.
Like a bullet piercing an apple.
That thirty-meter-tall black giant, the pinnacle of the European Union’s technological achievements, had a huge hole punched straight through its chest.
The kinetic energy from this strike didn’t stop; after penetrating the mecha, it still had enough force to slant into the sea behind.
THUD!
The sea surface instantly collapsed into a huge pit hundreds of meters in diameter.
Then, a water column a thousand meters high shot into the sky, and the waves capsized nearby warships.
“Urgh…”
Ymir still floated in the air, but the golden runes on its body instantly went dark.
Its movements became stiff.
Then—
RUMBLE—
Countless parts disintegrated, and its massive body, no longer supported, broke apart from the middle.
Like a fallen angel, it crashed heavily onto the island’s plaza, raising a cloud of dust.
It landed less than ten meters in front of the Leader, who stood dumbstruck.
The massive shockwave sent the Leader flying, the wineglass in his hand shattering into pieces.
Red wine spilled all over, indistinguishable from blood.
Dead silence.
Whether it was the fighters in the sky, the fleet on the sea, or even the arrogant Espers—at that moment, it was as if someone had pressed the pause button.
Everyone stared blankly at the “Decisive Weapon” that had been reduced to scrap metal.
Yuki Asahi still sat in his chair.
Although the shockwave made his ears ring, he was the calmest person on the whole field.
He looked at the huge wreckage, a slight smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
“W-what… what is this…”
The Leader, covered in dust, crawled up from the ground.
Staring at the still-smoking scrap metal before him, his eyes unfocused, he muttered repeatedly:
“This can’t be… This can’t be…”