Chapter 139: Final Command

Sitting among the shattered pillars of the ruined terrace were the only three beings in Port Solis who had survived the continuous naval bombardment: Ayanokoji, Kenji, and Miyuki.

They looked like broken dolls pulled from the wreckage of a collapsed mine.

Miyuki lay flat on her stomach, her torn school uniform soaked in soot and dark blood. Her sacred wooden staff was split in two, lying uselessly beside her blistered hands. Her breathing was a faint, shallow wheeze, her spiritual pathways burnt to cinders from sustaining the Absolute Sanctuary Ward until the very last second.

Kenji was slumped against a half-fallen marble pillar. His right arm was bent at an unnatural angle, broken in two places, and three deep shrapnel wounds leaked dark blood across his ribs. His ceremonial rapier was snapped into three jagged shards of steel. His head hung low, his vacant, bloodshot eyes staring down at the dust between his boots.

Only Ayanokoji remained upright, leaning heavily on the shaft of his black abyssal spear.

His left leg was tied off with a bloody strip of cloth, the shattered bone in his shin grinding together with every micro-shift of his weight. Half of his face was blackened from thermal burns, his left eye swollen shut, but his single open eye remained cold, glassy, and completely detached.

The black Torment Bands on their forearms continued to pulse with a faint, rhythmic red light, keeping their conscious minds trapped beneath a wall of dark, parasitic mana.

Viona dragged herself toward them, her silk slippers scraping through gravel and bloody dust.

"Ayanokoji..." she gasped, her voice cracked, hoarse, and shaking with pure terror.

Ayanokoji’s head turned slightly. His single open eye looked straight through her.

"Awaiting orders, Master," he replied in his flat, mechanical drone.

"Listen to me," Viona hissed, grabbing the front of his torn uniform with her working left hand, her fingernails digging into the fabric. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and wild with desperate madness. "The imperial capital... the central cathedral at Solaria... I must return there. I have to channel the Hearth Stone. It requires three minutes to open the spatial corridor."

Ayanokoji’s pupil flickered as his S-rank brain processed the variables without a shred of emotion.

"Spatial channeling emits a concentrated high-frequency electromagnetic and mana signature," Ayanokoji stated smoothly. "Hostile radar and thermal satellites will detect the anomaly within four seconds of initiation. Estimated time to counter-battery impact: forty-five seconds via carrier-launched AGM-88 or five-inch extended-range artillery. Survival probability during static three-minute channeling: zero point zero percent."

"THAT IS WHY YOU ARE GOING TO STOP THEM!" Viona shrieked, spitting blood onto his chest.

She shoved him back against his spear, her breath hot and ragged with hysterical desperation.

"You three are my greatest champions! S-rank heroes! You defeated dragon kings! You wiped out entire rebel armies! You are not allowed to die until my portal is opened!"

She raised her left hand, pointing a trembling, bloody finger toward the harbor entrance below.

"Take Kenji! Take Miyuki! Go to the lower seawall! You will stand on the ruined quay where you slaughtered their general! You will unleash your remaining mana into the sky! Draw their fire! Make their iron birds look at you! Make their ships fire at you! Stand your ground and buy me three minutes!"

Ayanokoji did not flinch. He did not blink.

"Hero Kenji possesses a shattered right humerus, punctured right lung, and zero offensive weapons," Ayanokoji reported flatly, listing the cold physical realities like an inventory report. "Hero Miyuki has suffered total spiritual core rupture, eighty-seven percent mana exhaustion, and severe internal hemorrhaging. My own combat effectiveness is reduced to twelve percent due to compound fractures and localized nerve damage."

He looked directly into Viona’s frantic, golden eyes.

"If we deploy to the lower quay to act as primary visual and thermal decoys, survival time against naval artillery and attack aviation is calculated at forty-two seconds. We cannot defeat the fleet, Master. We cannot stop the bombs. We will be completely destroyed."

"I DON’T CARE!" Viona roared at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking into a jagged, ugly scream.

She raised her hand toward the sky, focusing every remaining ounce of her divine will into the master runes carved across her own soul.

"You are tools!" she snarled, tears of pure hatred streaming down her ruined face. "You are summoned insects! Your lives, your bodies, your souls belong to the Sun Throne! If you die to buy me ten seconds, then you have fulfilled your purpose!"

Her eyes flared with blinding, corrupt celestial mana.

"BY MY DIVINE AUTHORITY AS GODDESS VIONA, I COMMAND YOU THROUGH THE TORMENT BANDS!" she screamed into their minds.

CRACK!

The three black iron bands on their arms snapped shut with monstrous force. The curved metal thorns sank even deeper, scraping directly against the bone, injecting pure, burning liquid mana straight into their veins.

Miyuki gasped, her eyes snapping wide open as dark, unstable red veins crawled across her neck and cheeks. Forcibly dragged out of unconsciousness by the artifact, she pushed her trembling hands against the dirt, her body shaking like a leaf.

Kenji let out a hollow, strangled roar as the dark mana flooded his battered muscles. He staggered to his feet, picking up the jagged, broken half of his ceremonial rapier with his left hand, his ruined right arm dangling uselessly at his side.

Ayanokoji leaned heavily on his black spear, standing upright on his single good leg. The red light in his lone eye burned with an unnatural, violent intensity, entirely burning away what little was left of his mortal consciousness.

"Command confirmed," Ayanokoji said, his voice completely dead, completely hollow. "Directive: deploy to lower quay. Engage all hostile airborne and naval assets. Draw maximum kinetic fire. Hold position until expiration of vital functions. Duration: one hundred and eighty seconds."

"Go!" Viona shrieked, backing away toward the deep shadows of the ruined throne room behind the terrace. "Buy me my time!"

Ayanokoji turned without another word.

Using his black spear as a crutch, dragging his broken, bloody leg across the rubble, he began the slow, agonizing descent down the ruined palace stairs toward the burning harbor.

Behind him, Kenji walked like a reanimated corpse, his broken blade held loose in his left hand, stumbling through the smoke.

Miyuki crawled on her hands and knees until her fingers found the splintered half of her wooden staff. Using the wood to pull herself up, she dragged her battered body after them, tears mixing with the blood running down her face, her dead crimson eyes fixed solely on Ayanokoji’s back.

They were three children from another world. They had been summoned against their will, enslaved by magical artifacts, and thrown into a war against machines they could never hope to understand.

And now, their goddess was throwing them directly into the jaws of an industrial meat grinder just to buy three minutes of life for herself.

Watching their retreating backs disappear into the dense black smoke, Viona let out a ragged, hysterical sob.

She turned and scrambled into the darkness of the ruined royal shrine, collapsing onto her knees before the cracked altar.

With trembling, bloody fingers, she reached into her bosom and pulled out the glowing Aegis Hearth Stone. The tiny crystal pulsed with brilliant, azure-gold light, humming with concentrated spatial energy.

"Forgive me... my glorious empire..." Viona whispered, her voice choking with terror and shame as she pressed her forehead against the cold stone altar. "I will burn them all... I will survive...!"

She closed her eyes, focused her ragged soul, and began channeling the three-minute chant.

Instantly, a towering pillar of bright azure light erupted from the ruins of the palace keep, shooting three thousand feet straight up into the dark, smoky sky like a brilliant beacon.

Five miles out at sea, inside the Combat Information Center of the USS Gerald R. Ford, every warning alarm on the tactical consoles screamed at once.

"High-energy anomaly detected at the palace keep!" the radar operator yelled. "Thermal signature spiking exponentially! Target is attempting something!"

Rear Admiral Donovan stepped up to the main display, his face cold and merciless.

"Target the palace," Donovan ordered. "All remaining naval guns, all strike aircraft. Level that mountain to the sea."

Down on the burning stone quay of Port Solis, Ayanokoji planted his black spear into the cracked pavement, looking out at the dark water where dozens of new muzzle flashes were already lighting up the horizon.

Beside him, Kenji raised his broken blade into the smoke. Behind them, Miyuki channeled her dying soul into a faint, flickering spark of green light.

The final barrage was coming.

And the three puppets stood alone on the shore, waiting for the iron to tear them apart.