Chapter 129: The Message

The high tower of the harbor keep was freezing in the late morning draft.

Prime Minister Belis stood behind the stone parapet, his wrinkled hands trembling as he held a brass spyglass to his eye. Up in the clouds, the gray silhouette of the MQ-9 Reaper drone continued its steady, patient orbit.

Suddenly, the drone’s high-altitude loudspeaker system hissed with static.

The synthesized Solarian voice rolled down across the ruined avenues of Port Solis.

"Imperial Command, this is United States Joint Task Force Forward Command. The proposed terms for parley at Grid Alpha-Zero are logged and accepted with strict operational amendments."

Belis lowered the spyglass, his heart leaping into his throat. Beside him, the two young temple acolytes held their breath.

"In accordance with standing diplomatic and theater security protocols, Supreme Commander John Smith will not make personal landfall on the contested quay. Plenipotentiary authority for the surrender ceremony has been officially delegated to Brigadier General Phillip, Second-in-Command of Forward Operations. General Phillip carries the full legal authority of the United States to sign, execute, and enforce all terms of imperial capitulation."

A brief pause hung in the freezing air before the drone concluded its transmission.

"General Phillips’s delegation will touch down on the forward quay at twelve hundred hours sharp. Maintain all imperial forces in passive posture. Any active magical spikes or hostile movements within the neutral buffer will be met with immediate kinetic counter-battery fire. Forward Command out."

The mechanical hum of the drone faded as it banked into the mist.

Belis stood frozen.

He isn’t coming.

The old minister felt an immediate, overwhelming wave of relief wash through his chest, followed an instant later by sheer, sickening dread.

The foreign commander had not taken the bait. John Smith was not an arrogant warlord marching out into the open to bask in glory; he was a cold calculator who operated with terrifying caution.

"Gods protect us..." Belis whimpered.

Tucking his velvet robes around his shaking knees, Belis turned away from the battlements and hurried down the winding stone stairs, racing back to the royal chambers.

Inside the private council room, Goddess Viona stood before the tall mirror, smoothing the gold embroidery of her fresh formal gown.

Her hair was brushed, pinned with silver needles, and her face was painted to hide the lingering gray pallor of mana exhaustion. She was preparing for what she believed would be the defining moment of her divine reign: the moment John Smith stepped within arm’s reach of Ayanokoji’s black spear.

The heavy double doors burst open.

Belis stumbled inside, tripping over the hem of his robe and crashing onto the carpet on his hands and knees. He didn’t even attempt to rise.

"Your Divinity!" Belis gasped, his breath rattling in his dry throat. "The message... the flying machine spoke again!"

Viona turned around, her golden eyes flashing with sharp triumph. "Has the rat confirmed his arrival? Has he named the hour he will kneel at my feet?"

"No, Lady Viona!" Belis cried out, clutching the carpet fibers. "He is not coming! John Smith refuses to step foot on the quay! He is sending a proxy! An officer named Phillip Phillips—his second-in-command!"

The silence that followed was absolute.

Viona’s smile froze.

The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her as pale as chalk. Her pupils contracted into tiny golden needles, and the air inside the closed chamber plummeted ten degrees in a split second.

"What... did you just say?" Viona whispered, her voice dangerously thin.

"He sent a representative!" Belis pleaded, his voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria. "He cited military protocols! A general named Phillip Phillips will arrive in his place with full authority to accept our surrender!"

"A PROXY?!"

The word tore from Viona’s throat in a piercing shriek of pure, unadulterated fury.

A sudden, violent explosion of celestial aura erupted from her body. The shockwave shattered the crystal sconces on the walls, blowing the glass across the carpet in thousands of glittering shards. The heavy cedar table splintered down the center, and the grand velvet tapestries along the stone walls caught fire from spontaneous divine friction, disintegrating into falling ash.

"Coward! Insolent, pathetic coward!" Viona screamed, stomping her silk-slippered foot onto the floor with enough force to crack the granite flagstones. "He hides in his metal bunker like a worm in the dirt! I granted him the honor of facing an immortal goddess! I offered him the chance to receive my personal submission! And he sends a subordinate?!"

She gripped her hair with both hands, pacing frantically like a caged beast, her chest heaving with ragged, furious breaths.

"He knew," she spat, her teeth grinding together with a sickening crunch. "The little bastard knew it was a trap! He was always like this! Even in the cathedral, he looked at me with those cold, suspicious eyes! He never trusted anyone! Not his classmates, not the priests, not even the deity who gave him life in this world!"

"Lady Viona, please!" Belis begged, crawling forward through the shattered glass, ignoring the sharp shards cutting into his palms. "Listen to reason! This is our salvation!"

Viona stopped in her tracks, glaring down at the bleeding old man with venomous disgust. "Salvation?! Are you mocking me, old fool?!"

"No! Look at the truth of our situation!" Belis shouted, tears streaming through the soot on his cheeks. "The negotiation is still on the table! The United States hasn’t canceled the parley! This General Phillips carries full authority to sign the capitulation and halt the blockade!"

Belis raised his bloody hands, desperate to break through her blinding rage.

"Our logistics are obliterated, Your Divinity! You saw the reports! Valora’s foundries are slag! Morvath’s wyverns are buried! The Silver River bridges are at the bottom of the water, and eighty percent of the central grain silos are black ash! Our provincial lords cannot move carts. Our people are going to starve within two weeks! The numbers do not lie—we have lost this war! Acknowledging their victory today stops the destruction of the civilian cities!"

"And what of my glory?!" Viona snarled, leaning down until her spit hit Belis’s cheek. "What of the divine throne?! If I sign that paper, I admit to every mortal on this continent that a foreign boy and his iron machines defeated a goddess! My temples will be abandoned! My altars will go cold! I will become a laughingstock across the heavens!"

"It is only temporary, Lady Viona!" Belis pleaded, clutching the hem of her gown with bloody fingers. "You haven’t lost everything! You still possess the greatest weapon in this world—the summoned heroes! Look outside! You hold Ayanokoji! You hold Kenji! You hold Miyuki and the mages! Their wills are broken! The Torment Bands have made them your absolute puppets!"

Belis pointed toward the double doors, his eyes pleading.

"You can sign their treaty today. Let their fleet cease the bombing. Let them bring in their grain and secure the roads. We swallow the bitter taste of defeat for now, but we keep the heroes hidden in the palace shadows! Ayanokoji’s mind, Kenji’s blade, and Miyuki’s mana belong entirely to you! Once the blockade lifts and their guard drops over the coming months, you can send those three across the ocean like invisible phantoms to slaughter their leaders in their sleep! We can rebuild! But if we fight now, there will be no empire left to rebuild!"

Viona stared down at him.

For a fraction of a heartbeat, the cold logic of Belis’s words seemed to pierce through the red haze in her mind. The reality was undeniable: the empire was on its knees, and having twenty obedient, mind-controlled S-rank and A-rank champions in her pocket was a trump card that no other nation possessed. Playing the long game, bidding her time until the foreign iron machines sailed away, was the only rational path.

Then her eyes drifted to the cracked window, looking out toward the five-mile line of gray warships resting insolently upon her holy sea.

The memory of her phoenixes being blown to pieces by metal darts flashed through her mind. The sting of her knees scraping against the ruined seawall. The mockery of that drone speaking down to her from five thousand feet.

Her monstrous, ancient pride flared like an open furnace, incinerating every shred of rational thought.

"Bide my time?" Viona whispered, her voice dropping from a shriek into a low, terrifying rasp. "Bow my head to an E-rank reject’s general and smile while he signs a piece of paper in my harbor?"

She slowly pulled her silk gown away from Belis’s bloody grasp.

"No," Viona hissed, a grotesque, manic sneer curling her lips. "I am not a mortal king who plays with patience and treaties. I am Goddess Viona of the Holy Solarian Empire. I do not beg for peace from an insect."

Belis felt the blood freeze in his veins. "Lady Viona... what are you doing...?"

"John Smith thinks he is clever," Viona purred, her golden eyes glowing with sickening malice. "He thinks sending a proxy keeps him safe. He thinks sitting in his underground hole five hundred leagues away shields him from the consequences of challenging a god."

She turned toward the door, her voice hardening into steel.

"He values this general, doesn’t he? He calls him his second-in-command. He trusts him to speak with his voice and carry his seal. Fine. If John Smith refuses to give me his own throat, I will take the throat of his closest brother in arms."

"NO!" Belis shrieked, throwing his entire body across the stone floor. "Lady Viona, you cannot! Killing the envoy under a white banner will ensure our total extinction! They will show no mercy!"

"Let them try!" Viona roared, her celestial aura flaring so violently that Belis was pinned flat against the stone by sheer gravity. "When that general steps off his flying carriage, Ayanokoji’s spear will pin him to the dock! Kenji will hack his guards to pieces! We will take the general’s severed head, mount it upon an enchanted spear, and cast it into the bay for their carrier to see!"

Her laugh echoed through the ruined council room, sharp, wild, and completely unhinged.

"I want John Smith to look through his scry and see his dearest commander’s blood pooling on the rocks! I want him to feel the sickening taste of absolute, helpless defeat! I want him to know that no matter how many bombs he drops, no matter how many granaries he burns, his people will die the moment they touch my shore!"