Chapter 154: Retaliation

She looked up at Leon, trembling with pure rage.

"Retaliate?" she said, her voice shaking with bitter fury. "How are we supposed to retaliate, Leon? Look at me! The barrier shattered in hours. The entire fleet at the harbor is gone. The garrison was wiped out before noon. It wasn’t even a real battle. It was a complete slaughter."

Leon stood there in the cold cavern with his arms crossed over his chest. He did not look worried at all. He just looked down at her with his one good eye, totally unimpressed by her outburst.

"Calm down," Leon said, his rough voice echoing off the damp rock walls. "You are panicking like a novice apprentice."

"I am panicking because our world just caved in!" Viona snapped, coughing as a sharp pain shot through her bruised chest. "Port Solis was the beating heart of the capital! It was the imperial seat! It was my main faith altar, my royal palace, and my throne! With those foreigners holding the city, the Sun Throne has fallen! My mana supply from four million souls has been completely severed!"

"The capital fell, but the empire is vast," Leon said, his tone flat and dry. "Port Solis was the head, yes. But the rest of the empire is still standing. The outer provinces, the frontier garrisons, the mountain fortresses, the eastern vassal domains—they are all untouched. The lords and governors out there don’t even know what happened yet. To them, the capital is just quiet."

He stepped closer, his heavy iron boot kicking a loose pebble into the dark water pooling on the cavern floor.

"Think for a second instead of crying over your lost palace," Leon said. "John Smith holds the capital, but he only holds the city walls and the bay. Around the capital lie hundreds of miles of rugged mountains, deep ravines, and loyal provincial lands. His metal wagons are heavy. They cannot drive over sheer cliffs, and his flying machines cannot hold every pass. If he tries to march out of the capital basin to pacify the rest of the continent, he has to move through the narrow valleys. That terrain belongs to us, Viona. That gives us the advantage."

Viona let out a long, ragged breath. She wiped a streak of blood and dirt off her cheek with the back of her sleeve, trying to steady her racing heart. Her dislocated shoulder still throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, but the panic in her mind was slowly being pushed down by cold anger.

"Aulus Cassian was taken alive," she muttered, her teeth clenching tightly. "That useless bureaucrat will sign whatever surrender paper they shove in his face. He hated the church anyway. Word that the capital has fallen is going to spread down the merchant roads within days."

"Which is why we have to crush them right now," Leon said, pointing a scarred finger directly at her face. "Before the other nations notice."

Viona went completely still.

"Think about it," Leon continued, leaning down slightly so his amber eye burned into hers. "The other countries leave the Solarian Empire alone because they think you are an immortal goddess. They think our realm has an invincible army and an unbreakable golden barrier. That fear is the only reason our borders are quiet while we secretly gather strength to defeat the Demon Lord."

Leon’s jaw tightened, the deep scar across his cheek pulling tight.

"What do you think happens if those neighboring rulers find out the truth?" Leon asked coldly. "What happens when they realize the grand capital of Solaria was taken by an E-rank trash hero? A kid with zero mana that you threw out into the dungeon like garbage?"

A cold, sickening knot formed deep in Viona’s stomach.

Leon was right. The entire empire was built on an illusion. The neighboring kingdoms, the beast tribes, and the rival empires across the sea were terrified of the "Goddess of Light." If they learned that the capital had fallen—that an outcast boy with no magic had dismantled the royal city in a single morning—that fear would vanish instantly.

Every rival kingdom on the continent would smell blood in the water. They would tear up their peace treaties. Their armies would pour across the borders, carving up the outer provinces and burning towns to the ground.

The empire would be torn apart by wolves before she and Leon could ever gather the power they needed.

"They can’t find out," Viona whispered, her voice dropping to a low, desperate hiss. "If they know the capital is taken and we are weak, they will swarm our borders from every direction."

"Exactly," Leon said, stepping back and resting his hand on the hilt of his massive broadsword. "If the other countries see a gap, we will be fighting five wars at once. Everything we built for three hundred years goes straight down the drain. We won’t have the time, the peace, or the armies to harvest the Demon Lord’s Heart. When Malakor fully awakens in the north, we’ll just be two more corpses rotting in the dirt."

He tapped the steel pommel of his blade.

"John Smith and his men cannot be allowed to secure that city," Leon said, his voice dropping into a dark, steady rhythm. "We have to wipe them out completely before they turn the capital into an unbreachable fortress. We bottle them up inside the basin, call in the provincial armies, and crush them against the sea. And when the ash settles, we execute Cassian, take back the throne, and tell the outside world that the destruction in the capital was just a divine trial—a holy purge where the Goddess personally burned away foreign demons."

Viona looked down at her dirt-caked, bloodstained hands.

Her fingernails were chipped, and her silk sleeves were burned black by foreign fire. She remembered the terrifying, indifferent roar of the metal shells falling from the clouds. But then she remembered John Smith—the ordinary, powerless boy who had knelt on her palace floor with empty hands.

The thought of that powerless ant sitting on her celestial throne in the capital made her blood boil with pure hatred.

"He wants a fight?" Viona whispered, her eye narrowing into two sharp slits of golden light. "Fine. I will summon every provincial army left in the empire. I will pull the paladins from the mountain shrines and the mages from the regional towers. We will lay siege to our own capital. I will drag him off my throne and burn him alive."

"Good," Leon grunted, his scarred lips twisting into a faint, wicked smirk. "Now stop sitting in the mud and look like a goddess again. We have an empire to mobilize."