Chapter 135: Rain of Iron and Fire

The bombardment did not pause for breath.

Far out on the water, the ships of Carrier Strike Group did not need to see Port Solis with human eyes. Their phased-array radar, satellite tracking, and the circling MQ-9 Reaper drone painted every square meter of the city onto digital grids. The fire was relentless, rhythmic, and utterly cold.

The Grand Avenue of Solis, once the pride of the empire where victorious paladins marched beneath triumphal arches, was transformed into an inescapable slaughter pen.

Over five hundred imperial paladins, adorned in gilded plate armor and carrying massive enchanted tower shields, had assembled in dense phalanxes along the wide boulevard. Their commander, an imperial duke, raised his glowing broadsword, screaming futile orders to form a defensive dome over the retreating noble carriages.

They were preparing for an enemy infantry assault that would never come.

High in the sky, two F-35C Lightning IIs opened their internal weapons bays, releasing a coordinated drop of CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons directly over the avenue.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!

The canisters split open at three thousand feet, deploying dozens of parachute-retarded submunitions. As they spun downward, their infrared sensors detected the high concentrations of metal and heat from the armored knights below.

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!

Dozens of high-velocity explosively formed penetrators shot downward at Mach 6.

The heavy enchanted shields, meant to withstand dragon fire and battleaxes, were punched through like wet cardboard. Slugs of molten copper ripped through helmets, breastplates, and bodies, continuing straight through into the cobblestones below. In less than five seconds, the entire five-hundred-man formation collapsed into a smoking heap of shredded steel, burning flesh, and severed limbs. Not a single shot had been fired from a rifle; the knights were wiped out without ever seeing the face of their killer.

Down along the residential wards, the destruction was absolute.

The navy’s five-inch guns were walking their fire block by block. High-explosive shells hammered into multi-story residential tenements, collapsing the wooden and brick structures into the streets, burying thousands of civilians beneath burning rubble.

Fires spread unchecked. The city’s water aqueducts had been severed during the opening barrage, leaving the municipal reservoirs dry. Huge plumes of oily black smoke rose five thousand feet into the afternoon sky, blocking out the sun and turning Port Solis into a suffocating, fiery hellscape.

Up on the palace bluff, the royal keep was being dismantled piece by piece from five miles away.

The tall decorative spires of the inner palace snapped under continuous missile impacts, tumbling down into the courtyards in roaring avalanches of stone. Walls that had stood for centuries were pulverized into fine white dust that coated everything like winter frost.

In the center of the terrace, only three summoned heroes remained alive: Ayanokoji, Kenji, and Miyuki.

Kenji was crouched low, his ceremonial rapier drawn, his holy mana flaring wildly as he desperately swatted away falling chunks of shattered stone and lethal iron splinters that whistled through the air. His eyes were wide, glassy, and bloodshot, his body acting purely on the survival protocols hard-coded into his Torment Band.

Beside him, Miyuki was on both knees, her plain wooden staff planted into a deep fissure in the flags. Her emerald healing mana was completely exhausted; instead, she was funneling every single spark of her spiritual core into sustaining a tight, trembling dome of green light—an Absolute Sanctuary Ward that covered barely ten square feet.

It was just large enough to shield herself, Kenji, Ayanokoji, and the goddess from the continuous rain of jagged shrapnel.

PING-PING-PING-PING!

Supersonic metal fragments from exploding artillery shells slammed against the outer surface of Miyuki’s green ward, sending painful electric tremors through her arms. Blood ran steadily from both of her nostrils, dripping off her chin and staining the front of her white tunic, but her glassy eyes remained fixed on the ground, entirely numb to the apocalypse tearing the city apart.

Standing at the absolute edge of the flickering green dome, Ayanokoji held his black abyssal spear resting against his shoulder.

His face was streaked with black soot and concrete dust, his dark hair whipping violently in the hurricane-force winds created by the raging fires. His red-tinted pupils tracked the falling bombs and the flashes of naval gunfire across the water with chilling, computer-like detachment.

"Daiki: confirmed deceased," Ayanokoji reported in his empty, mechanical drone, not even flinching as an artillery shell demolished the adjacent guard tower fifty yards away. "Rena: confirmed deceased. Shin: confirmed deceased. All secondary hero combat units: eradicated. Imperial ground force cohesion: zero percent."

Goddess Viona pushed herself up from the bloody dirt, leaning heavily against the base of a shattered marble sundial.

Her immaculate white and gold gown was reduced to burnt, bloodstained rags. Her face was coated in soot and streaked with her own golden celestial blood. She stared out through the smoke toward the city below.

Port Solis—the grand, eternal capital of her divine realm—no longer existed.

It was a flat, roaring ocean of fire, pulverized rock, and thousands of crushed corpses. The grand bridges were collapsed into the boiling harbor. The magnificent cathedrals were burning heaps of gravel. Screams of dying soldiers and trapped civilians drifted up through the smoke, entirely swallowed by the thunderous, unceasing roar of naval cannons firing rhythmically from the open sea.

No soldiers were marching up the hill. No conqueror was standing before her demanding tribute.

The Americans weren’t coming to claim the city. They were simply wiping it from the face of the earth, safely sitting five miles out on the water, treating her sacred empire like a firing range.

"Why...?" Viona whimpered, her voice cracking into a high, pathetic sob. "Why aren’t they coming...? Where are their soldiers...?! Why won’t he face me?!"

Ayanokoji did not turn around to look at her.

"They have no operational necessity to close the distance, Master," Ayanokoji explained, his voice entirely flat, entirely devoid of mercy. "Modern doctrine prioritizes the complete preservation of friendly personnel through the application of overwhelming, long-range fires. John Smith is not seeking personal glory or territorial conquest."

He raised his black spear slightly, pointing out toward the horizon where the gray warships flashed with continuous sheets of orange flame.

"He is simply conducting an industrial extermination."

A high-altitude whistling sound tore through the air directly above them.

Four heavy AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles dropped out of the overcast clouds, their sleek gray bodies banking sharply, locking onto the palace foundations below their feet.

Viona looked up, her golden eyes wide with the realization of her absolute, helpless insignificance.