Chapter 5: The Tower (Reverse)

Chapter 5: The Tower (Reverse)

CHAPTER 5

THE TOWER (REVERSE)

“…Ah.”

For a moment, Theo was speechless. What just happened? Some part of him had to know. Laughing Fox looked up at Undertaker as it all took place, so it had seen everything that transpired.

“…Shin.”

No response came. The Para-RAID had been shut off. Just like back then. When they abandoned the captain to his death. It was the same silence that lingered after he’d cut off the radio.

He’d forgotten. The captain… The captain who, despite being an Alba, returned to the battlefield of his own volition. Leaving behind a beloved wife and a newborn child. Who had people who would grieve his passing. A man who had a future ahead of him, joy he could claim if he’d only lived on…

And despite all that, he died. Leaving nothing behind but the Personal Mark of a laughing fox. And in his place, Theo survived… Theo, who didn’t have a future or anyone to share it with. No one to grieve his passing. He had neither a family nor a home to return to. That didn’t mean he wanted to die, but…he did think that if only one of them had to survive, it should have been the captain.

And Shin was the same. He’d finally found someone to share his life with. A happy future to aspire toward. And he had comrades who all wished for him to grasp that joy.

Theo had been left behind again. Still unable to wish for anything.

It was like he’d forgotten so far. And now he’d remembered, all too vividly. It didn’t matter how much one’s life was worth. The number of people one left behind, the sheer volume of tears that would be shed by their passing… None of that mattered. A life could be reaped away without regard for any of that.

If anything, it seemed that those who had more to live for—those who would be mourned the most—were always the first to go.

Such was the way of the world.

“Ah…”

The sight of it froze Lena in place, too. Undertaker crashed down, scattering tiny shards as it did. She could see him fall in slow motion, but it only took a single moment before it ended. It crashed into the sea, raising a pillar of splashing water in its wake. And just like that, it powerlessly sank into the shadowy depths.

“Aah… Aaaah…”

She could hear, as if from a distance, the sound of Frederica’s chair falling and retreating footsteps as the girl jumped to her feet. She could hear her intentionally sprint in a panic, and in between her steps, she shouted, “Send a rescue boat! My power can see the ones who fall, so hurry and save him! Quickly!”

But even as she heard her, Lena couldn’t move. Undertaker… Shin had fallen. But he was fine. He had to be. She had to believe it. He’d fallen from quite the significant height, but he did fall into the water. The Reginleif was built for fighting at high speeds, and it was equipped with powerful shock absorbers. What’s more, Undertaker fired its wire anchor midfall, momentarily coiling around a beam. That should have curbed its falling speed and allowed it to correct its posture. He didn’t fall headfirst, so he was fine. He had to be.

The Stella Maris had deployed rescue boats around the Spire ahead of time, accounting for the possibility of someone falling. Small boats meant for retrieving fighter planes that crashed before returning to their carrier. The Juggernaut was even lighter than that, so collecting it shouldn’t have been a tall order.

But would the water really have softened his landing that much? And didn’t his wire miss before it could reduce his fall speed? As powerful as the shock absorbers might have been, they couldn’t completely nullify the impact. And before accounting for all that, wouldn’t the Phönix’s self-destruction damage Undertaker?

And most importantly, if he was fine, then why? Why wouldn’t the Para-RAID connect to him? Lena was right there, so why didn’t he reach out to her for rescue…?!

“No…!”

Shin said he’d return. On that snowy battlefield, they promised each other they would return alive, together. He’d told her he wanted to live alongside her. The conversation they had right before this operation surfaced in her mind. That time, it was Shin who stole a kiss. A biting, sulking…yet sweet kiss.

The words he’d told her.

Whenever you’re ready to give me your answer…just let me know.

Lena still hadn’t answered him. She still hadn’t returned the feelings she should have expressed eons ago. And despite that…

Feeling all the power drain from her limbs, Lena sunk to the floor. Her blood pressure dropped, as if she’d suddenly been overcome with anemia. A thick white fog clouded her field of vision.

She was a commander on the ship’s bridge, in front of both her subordinates and another country’s soldiers. The stray thought that she ought to have kept up her appearances as Bloody Reina, something akin to pride, crossed her mind.

But all that felt distant right now. Her knees couldn’t support her weight. She’d spent her entire life standing on two feet, but right now, the memory of how to do it eluded both her mind and body. Her slender form wavered. Marcel rose to his feet, sensing danger.

But then a voice she hadn’t heard in what felt like forever boomed through the Resonance.

“Pull yourself together, Your Majesty!”

Lena snapped to her senses. It was as if that call had slapped her across the face. She somehow managed to get strength in her legs. That voice…

“Shiden…,” Lena muttered wearily to herself, as if she’d just been shaken out of a dream.

Shiden sighed in relief upon hearing this. Since the Resonance communicated noises as they occurred to each of their respective senses, the synchronization rate was preset to its minimal setting. But even at minimal Resonance, emotions were expressed as if they were facing each other directly, and Lena could feel the strained unease and panic Shiden was only barely able to suppress.

Whenever she faced Shin, the two of them would always fight. It felt like the two of them were incompatible on the most fundamental level of their personalities. But Shiden did acknowledge Shin in her own way, so she was worried about him.

“He’ll be fine. He said he’d come back to ya, didn’t he? Then it’s your job to believe in him. He’ll make it. He survived the Special Reconnaissance mission, didn’t he?”

Lena gasped. The Eighty-Sixth Sector’s battlefield of certain death. The final disposal site of the Eighty-Six who’d outlived their period of service, like the eastern front’s first defensive unit, the Spearhead squadron. The death march through enemy territory. A mission with a survival rate of 0 percent. And despite it being their final good-bye, they’d managed to cheat death.

“You know this already. We Eighty-Six, we’re stubborn and cling to life, no matter how underhanded the means we have to resort to are. They fed us to the Eighty-Sixth Sector and told us to die, yet here we are. And he’s the strongest out of all of us. Ain’t no way in hell he’s not the most stubborn of the bunch, too.”

There’s no way he isn’t coming back from this.

Lena nodded desperately. She nodded again and again.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right…”

She fixed her posture and raised her head. Marcel watched her with concern in his eyes, and from where Lena stood, she could see Ishmael, averting his gaze to spare her from being seen in this shameful moment. Lena nodded at him and raised her voice.

“Vanadis to all units! Command over the Spearhead squadron is relegated to Raiden. The operation’s objective will be changed.”

The Federacy uniform flapped as she moved, and she clenched her fists without regarding it.

“The Strike Package’s mission is to remove the threat of the Legion from the Fleet Countries’ shores. The new Legion type that appeared, the Noctiluca, is a threat that must be eliminated. If this unit’s long-distance cannons are allowed to move freely through the sea, it would put not just the Fleet Countries but all other countries in danger. As such…”

She glared at the massive shadow displayed on her monitor.

“…our new top-priority objective is the elimination of the Noctiluca. Direct all your efforts to annihilating the target!”

The appearance of an enemy vessel, with two railguns as its main armaments at that, was incredibly shocking for the Orphan Fleet’s crew. But compared with the Eighty-Six, who were the subject of a surprise attack by an 800 mm shell and lost their operations commander, they were much calmer.

Another factor that contributed to them remaining collected was that as part of their initial objective, they had formed a circular perimeter around the Mirage Spire, preparing to resume bombardment of the Morpho.

“Stella Maris to all vessels! Our target is the Noctiluca. Open fire as soon as you realign your sights!”

That was why, when it came to naval combat, the Orphan Fleet were the ones to shoot first. Two long-distance cruisers fixed their guns on the target, and the supercarrier fixed four of its own guns. In other words, its main turrets, a pair of 40 cm gun mounts, roared as it billowed fire. Shells that each weighed one tonne cut through the ocean breeze as they rushed toward the Noctiluca.

However, the Orphan Fleet’s guns were normally meant for firing and scattering depth charges across long distances. They were now launching them above the sea, where they were less effective, in addition to their guns not being accurate against moving targets. Guided weapons were expensive, and the Fleet Countries had very few of them, and so their shells only landed exactly on the spot they were fired toward.

The Noctiluca, however, was far faster than one might imagine such a massive vessel to be. With the unnatural agility and speed characteristic of the Legion, it swiftly changed bearings, moving about the ocean with lightning speed and using the time lag that the 40 cm shells took to reach it to deftly avoid them.

The ship turned, the two pairs of wings on its main turrets spread out as the blue optical sensors on its bow glinted as they glared at the Stella Maris. It wasn’t a second later that the two 800 mm railguns swiveled to aim at the enemy vessel.

Supercarriers were never built in anticipation of open naval combat between itself and another vessel, and it wasn’t capable of avoiding shots from an enemy gun with such a wide rotation radius.

“We won’t let you…!”

But just then, the Denebola finished shooting and began moving at max speed toward the Noctiluca, preparing to ram its flank. A ramming maneuver akin to the oar ships of old.

The Denebola’s bow was crashed against the Noctiluca’s heavily armored broadside. Sparks flew, and the long-distance cruiser’s hull let out a metallic screech as it sidled up to the Noctiluca and fired all its mooring wires. As the anchor at their ends dug into the Electromagnetic Gunship type, the Denebola’s motor roared as it began moving in reverse. It was trying to tow away the Noctiluca—which weighed in at over a hundred thousand tonnes—with all its propulsion.

“Stella Maris, Brother! While you have time, you—”

Ishmael would never hear the end of that sentence. The two railguns turned to the Denebola. Crackling electricity ran between one set of rails, and then…fire.

The thundering blast of the cannon at close range was so intense that it came across as silence instead of noise. The Denebola’s bridge took a direct hit and was completely blown away. The intense sound of that explosion eclipsed all other sounds on the battlefield.

And yet the Denebola kept moving. Its engine was still running, driving the ship in reverse course, fiercely towing the Noctiluca away. Of course, it was more than double the Denebola’s weight, so the ship couldn’t turn it away. But the sheer force of its movement did stall the massive vessel…exposing its sensitive left flank to the three other remaining ships.

The Denebola’s positioning placed the Noctiluca in an unfavorable position. Since it was a massive vessel that dwarfed even the Stella Maris, standing directly to its right made it so its railguns, even at their lowest angle of depression, could only aim at the bridge. A ship’s engine was coupled with its propellers, placing it at the hull’s bottom—underwater. The Denebola being at point-blank range effectively sealed away the Noctiluca’s strongest armaments, making it an impediment it couldn’t easily shake off or eliminate.

All that was calculated at the moment the Denebola rammed it. The moment before the bridge was blown off, the Denebola’s captain could be heard over the radio.

“Glory to the Orphan Fleet…!”

Those words weren’t directed at anyone in particular. Those were simply the captain’s choice of final words. He could have voiced a grudge or a regret, and no one would judge him for it. But instead, he praised his country, his homeland—the history that led up to him being who he was.

That courage made Ishmael grit his teeth. This was an operation they had to accomplish—even if it meant losing the entirety of their navy, even if the Orphan Fleet had to be wiped out to do it.

Swallowing all the pain and indignation, he raised his head.

“Continue the bombardment! We have it pinned down. Next time, we hit it! Knock it down to the bottom of the ocean!”

“Artillery squadron, prepare to fire! Load up incendiary bombs! We have to disable the enemy’s optical camouflage first!”

At Lena’s order, lines of fire were launched from the Stella Maris’s deck. The blue sky, which had only just brightened with the passage of the storm, turned dark again as missiles rushed at the Noctiluca. The incendiary bombs soon reached the top of the Noctiluca, spraying and igniting the napalm they contained. An intense bombardment that didn’t shy away from overheating the barrel brought a shower of dark flames to bear upon the metallic battleship.

The flames danced upon the armored deck, spreading up to the fortresslike gun turrets, slithering between the railguns’ barrels. Metallic wings caught fire, turning to silver-gray ash that the wind scattered over the sea. This exposed a group of argent, undulating shadows.

Lena gazed at it, her eyes narrowed. Enemy detected. It really was them.

She’d predicted before this operation began that the Legion might intend to mass-produce it and that this might be the time they chose to introduce them. That was why she made sure to add incendiary bombs to their arsenal and increased the number of Juggernauts with armaments that would better counter them.

The sudden worsening of the war situation for the Fleet Countries and the other surrounding nations. The Legion’s change in strategy following the failure of the large-scale offensive. The rise in their numbers and increased performance.

When Vika saw the Phönix in the Revich Citadel Base, he wondered what the unit was made for. Sword-touting heroes, racing through the battlefield like one-man armies, were ineffective in modern warfare. That held true for humankind, but that idea was all the more worthless for the Legion.

But the Legion changed their tactics. Their numbers rose, and their performance increased. They destroyed the Republic, taking its citizens as spoils of war. They exchanged the Black Sheep, created with the damaged neural networks of the war dead, for the Sheepdogs, which retained their intellect but removed the personality and memories.

They had gathered plenty of heads to use for their ordinary soldiers. So natural progression indicated that their next step would be gathering the heads of the elite.

Modern warfare had no place for heroes.

But the Legion were different. They needed “heroes.” Their change in strategy necessitated it. And so they made it. One who would seek out the shining star among the brittle humans, an inefficient yet powerful hero’s head. They made a unit that would act as a hero to hunt the heads of heroes.

A unit that would overwhelm even the most skilled of human soldiers but would not harm their remains—their brains—with the force of artillery. A melee, bladed soldier. An idea discarded by modern warfare.

“To hunt heads, for the sake of expanding the Legion’s performance. To do that, they would have to mass-produce the Phönix.”

And despite having predicted it…

Being Resonated with Shin and hearing the countless wailings had put a strain on Vika, too, and that was exceptionally hard in the Noctiluca’s case, as its screams were a bloodcurdling mixture of multiple brains. Ironically enough, with Shin disconnected and the screams gone, Vika finally realized he could make out some portion of what the screams were trying to convey.

At first, he thought it was just wailing. But now he realized that some of what it said formed meaningful words. Those were words he’d heard in a ritual once when he was little, before the Legion War started.

Those words weren’t in the primary language of the continent’s west. Between the Federacy and the countries of the continent’s east spanned a hammada desert, its trade routes governed by the Rin-Liu Trade Federation. That ritual and the Legion’s wailings were in the language of that country and its surrounding nations and tribes.

The officers of those countries spoke those words, offering them up as prayer to their deity of war—a war goddess.

Vika narrowed his Imperial violet eyes in thought.

“So one of them was an eastern general… I see. The Legion aim to improve their features…”

The Sheepdogs were based on Republic citizens who never knew war and had no knowledge of battle, and so they sought to optimize them. The Eighty-Six had no knowledge of strategy, and so they sought to improve the Shepherds into more efficient commander units with superior command skills.

And to do so, the Legion would intentionally seek out soldiers. Highly educated, rigorously trained, high-ranking commanders—the kind that were protected and rarely found on the front lines. And so they chose small countries, where the defensive lines were easier to breach, as their hunting grounds. Once they’d broken through, they could collect the heads of high-ranking officers who gave commands from the home front.

Like, for example, the Fleet Countries. Nations that requested that the Strike Package deploy there. The Federacy and the United Kingdom couldn’t know this because of the Eintagsfliege’s electronic interference, but several countries had likely already been wiped out by the Legion.

The disturbing screaming of the Noctiluca, the final cries of dozens of people—that was probably the result of many neural networks fused together. This was likely a Shepherd that couldn’t function as a commander and had the brain structures of generals and field officers appended to it after the fact.

“…How troublesome.”

The Stella Maris entered artillery battle with the Noctiluca, forcing it into evasive maneuvers until the Denebola rammed it. As a result, it had moved away from the Mirage Spire, leaving the marine fortress the Reginleifs had infiltrated behind.

Their tank turrets could reach the Noctiluca, but it had gotten far enough that they couldn’t hope to jump over to it. Meanwhile, the Phönix units aboard the Noctiluca’s deck shook the ash of the Eintagsfliege off themselves and began climbing up to their mother ship’s turrets in groups. They ascended to the top of the ship, dozens of meters above sea level, and plunged off, grabbing onto the outer walls of the Spire and gaining height with devilish speed.

Raiden overlooked the scene from the current top level of the Spire, Carla Three. Leaving the naval battle to their mother ship, it seemed the Phönix units decided to stage a landing. Their goal was to retake the fortress. Or perhaps headhunting, as Lena predicted.

Either way, it didn’t matter.

“—Yuuto! We’ll handle beating back the Phönix here. Lend me your troops on Level Carla!”

This was right after they had all scattered to take cover, without regard for squadron or platoon, across six different floors. They didn’t have time for everyone to regroup to their respective units.

Sitting inside his unit, Verethragna, in Level Bertha, Yuuto regarded him with a glance and a curt nod. Exchanging members between their units wasn’t out of the usual for either of them.

In the Eighty-Sixth Sector, anyone could die at any time, and so units had to be reorganized and rebalanced. As commanders or vice commanders, they were often required to account for those changes.

“Go ahead. All units on Level Bertha, you are hereby under my command. Fire-restriction and area-suppression units, stay wary of the Phönix and cover for the vanguards equipped with tank turrets and snipers. Vanguards and snipers, focus on taking out the Noctiluca’s turrets. We’ll be supporting the Orphan Fleet’s battle.”

With the Noctiluca fixed in place by the Denebola, the Stella Maris and the remaining two long-distance cruisers continued bombarding it. They rotated their turrets so as to not strike their consort units or the Mirage Spire and resumed their shooting.

As low as their accuracy was, they would still hit a straight shot against an immobile target. Their 40 mm shells flocked the Noctiluca in a linear course.

Only for all of them to be effectively deflected.

“What…?!”

“It’s so bulky…!”

Its armor was thick. Since it didn’t need to account for the extra load that came with having crew members, the Legion could invest all its weight into thick armor. And since the Orphan Fleet’s ships had to remain wary of the railguns’ rapid fire, they had to keep their distance. This meant their shots lacked the punch to penetrate its armor.

The Basilicus turned rudder to shoot from up close, but it was then that the Noctiluca fired back. The massive ship had its portside, with eleven of its 155 mm rapid-fire guns, turned toward the Orphan Fleet. The guns began spewing fire.

True, it had its weakest point, its bow, exposed to its enemies. But this also meant many of its guns were now facing the enemy fleet, allowing it to exhibit maximal firepower. A thick, quick barrage of bullets flew through the air, shot faster than artillery could ever hope to be. This forced the Basilicus to turn rudder in a hurry and flee.

Much like its main armaments, the rapid-fire guns were railguns. They couldn’t approach it like this.

Watching over the fighting from Level Bertha, Theo gritted his teeth.

He was now under Yuuto’s command. The Noctiluca was the only enemy craft on the water, and it was fixed in place. But the battle between the Noctiluca and the Orphan Fleet was too one-sided. It was like a pack of rats trying to hunt down a tiger.

It had more guns than all the remaining ships the Orphan Fleet had put together and was capable of firing at them rapidly with its railguns. With twenty-two 155 mm rapid-fire guns and two 800 mm turrets working in tandem, it could launch a nightmarish, incessant barrage.

Theo’s group was deployed on the Mirage Spire’s Level Bertha, where the Juggernauts equipped with 88 mm turrets took aim at the rapid-fire guns. They attempted to shoot at them repeatedly, but the vessel was also equipped with over fifty 40 mm antiaircraft guns.

Under that barrage, aiming at the Morpho was hard, and keeping it pinned in place was even harder. And those antiair guns were set there to defend the two main railguns and the 155 mm rapid-fire guns.

No matter what direction they aimed at the rapid-fire guns from, they would always be in the cross fire of the antiaircraft guns. The occasional shot managed to get to the rapid-fire guns, but the armor plates set to defend them were too thick. They couldn’t penetrate them from this distance.

If there was one way to decisively remove them…

“We have to get closer. We have to board the ship.”

The Noctiluca was slightly outside the range a Reginleif would be able to jump across. They couldn’t leap to it. Looking around, Theo searched for something they could use.

There.

“Laughing Fox to all units. I’m boarding the enemy! Cover me!”

He thrust his unit’s control sticks forward. Laughing Fox sprung like an arrow. Instead of jumping down the floors, he jumped to the exterior of the Spire, using his three-dimensional movement to travel even faster. He fired his anchor forward to stabilize his unit, moving vertically down the tower.

A transmission from Raiden soon blew into his ear.

“Don’t be crazy, Theo! You’re letting panic get the better of you!”

“It’s fine. I’m not panicking.”

That was a lie. He was terrified, and he knew it. He couldn’t deny the lump of emotion smoldering in his heart, overwhelming him and taking away his reasoning.

Shin should have found his salvation. He could see his future… He could have been happy, and he was lost.

Mercilessly. All too easily. All too quickly. This was the only kind of equality that really existed. And if that was the case…

We who can’t be saved are probably going to get consumed all the more mercilessly. We really will die.

“But…I can’t not do anything crazy here.”

If he was to contain the desire to scream out the smoldering lump in his heart, he had to do this.

He kept sprinting down until he spotted what looked like a jumping board, positioned diagonally over the sea. It was likely some kind of scaffolding that had been bent down the middle by the falling beams.

“Go…!”

He landed on it precisely and, without breaking his momentum, sprinted to the edge and jumped off the tip.

“Artillery squadron, switch ammunition to antipersonnel buckshot. Fire as soon as you’ve loaded!”

Seeing Laughing Fox’s plunge, Lena immediately gave that order. Much like the incendiary bombs, she brought this ammo to counter the optical camouflage. This couldn’t help penetrate the Noctiluca’s deck, which could even withstand bombardment, but the flames could blind its sensors.

Theo couldn’t dodge midjump, and so she gave that order to ensure he wouldn’t be shot down. In the distance, the Noctiluca was covered by a blooming cloud of flames and smoke. It would take a moment for the blast’s sound to reach them, though.

“Continue firing! Keep up the barrage until further orders!”

Both Theo’s shout that he would board the enemy and Lena’s orders to cover for him reached Kurena through the Resonance. She was still standing frozen in place on Level Carla, where she’d evacuated to escape the railgun’s bombardment. Some part of her mind remarked that she should be helping cover for him, but she couldn’t move.

Her vision was dazed and unfocused. The head-mounted display followed her eye movements, the reticle swirling in place. Watching it was headache-inducing. Her right hand was shaking, and she couldn’t bring herself to clench it. She couldn’t even feel the control stick it was holding.

After all…Shin had fallen. The one person whom she thought would never leave her. Just like the many comrades she’d met before and since meeting him. Just like Kaie and Haruto and Kujo and Kino did two years ago in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Just like her parents, who were beaten to death by soldiers as part of a joke… Just like her sister, whom she loved more than anything but who never came back.

Shin alone was the only one who would always return. The only one who’d never leave her side. The only one who wouldn’t abandon her…!

“No…no, don’t…don’t leave me…!”

She stood stock-still. Her muscles wouldn’t budge, and all her thoughts drew blanks. She couldn’t move. But her hands alone wouldn’t stop shaking, and her eyes kept wandering, refusing to fixate on anything. She felt like she couldn’t hit even a single shell if she tried.

Because being next to him was the only place she belonged. She had nothing else. Even if she were to lose her pride, they would still be comrades. That wouldn’t change. And just that would be enough to keep her going.

Something ran up to Gunslinger. An ivory-white shadow, like polished bone. A prowling, skeletal spider creeping across the battlefield in search of its lost head. A Reginleif.

…Seeking its lost head. Seeking his brother’s stolen head. But she wouldn’t be able to wander the battlefield in search of it all alone like he could… She wouldn’t be able to find Shin’s lost whereabouts.

The Reginleif’s red optical sensor turned to face her. Red, just like a certain someone’s eyes. It had the Personal Mark of a scaled, winged maiden. Melusine, Shana’s rig. Apparently, the Brísingamen squadron saw that they didn’t have enough hands on deck to handle the Phönix and joined them on Level Carla.

She could hear Shana’s cool voice connect to the Resonance and speak to her.

“Kurena, what are you doing? We need to cover for—”

But just as she spoke, Shana realized why Kurena wasn’t doing anything. She didn’t even make an effort to hide her irritation, clicking her tongue and leaving only one remark through the Resonance.

“If you’re not going to shoot, get down from here. You’re in the way.”

Those words hit her stronger than anything else. Yes, that was right.

She was being useless.

Laughing Fox’s ten-tonne weight drew an arc as it soared past the blue abyss. Upon reaching the zenith of his jump, it began falling in midair with nothing beneath it. It was just shy of reaching the Noctiluca’s deck.

Theo fired a wire anchor, which coiled around a radar mast, and reeled it back to compensate for the distance he didn’t have. Noticing his reckless charge, the antiaircraft guns fixed their sights on him. But the moment their line of fire turned to him, shells flew in and burst one after another. Their flames and shock waves obfuscated the line of fire, hiding Laughing Fox from the Noctiluca.

Theo retrieved the wire anchor he’d coiled around the enemy vessel, then fired another anchor in the opposite direction. It fixed itself into the ship’s broadside as the other anchor noisily returned to its launcher. The recoil as well as gravity yanked Laughing Fox out of the antiaircraft guns’ range.

The fixed wire kept him hanging as he moved downward over the water. Reeling his wire back, he climbed up and hopped down to the Noctiluca’s deck.

The antiaircraft guns fired in pursuit of Laughing Fox, their bullets gouging into the deck. Laughing Fox evaded their shots, hiding behind a pile of beams lying on the deck—likely pieces of the Spire’s scaffolding.

I guess the Morpho wasn’t keen on shooting down the floors because this thing was right beneath us.

Soon after, others followed his lead, using their anchors to board the ship. Lerche’s Chaika, Yuuto’s Verethragna, and the surviving Alkonosts. The antipersonnel buckshot formed smoke screens that hid them from the antiaircraft guns, and they soon took cover in the same spots as him.

Theo could see the beams they were using as a sprung weight bend under their load and roll away loudly. Chaika, who was hiding closest to Laughing Fox, sent a reproachful look in his direction.

“You shouldn’t go on such reckless ventures, Sir Fox…! Leave this kind of foolhardiness to Sir Reaper, if you will!”

“Keep your angry chirping for later, birdie… You know what we have to do, right, guys? We crush the railguns. That should let the cruisers and the supercarrier get closer and scuttle this thing with their cannons.”

Even if they were to scatter around the Noctiluca’s full three-hundred-meter length and add to the bombardment, the Juggernaut’s 88 mm cannon was like a peashooter against this massive vessel. If they were to sink this thing, they’d have to definitively destroy the control core, and the only thing that could manage that was a close-range shot from a large-caliber turret.

That said, penetrating the railguns’ armor would be difficult, too. The Juggernauts would have to fire their 88 mm turrets at close range, and to do that, they’d need to dispose of the enemies guarding it.

“So first, we’d need to get rid of those annoying rapid-fire guns…”

“Getting rid of the antiaircraft guns comes first, Rikka,” Yuuto said composedly. “Our units are the only ones atop the Noctiluca. We shouldn’t expect any reinforcements, and trying to destroy the rapid-fire guns with these numbers would be suicide.”

Theo exhaled. Yuuto was right. Their springboard was gone, and besides, the only ones who could pull the stunts needed to board the ship were vanguards who were skilled with these kinds of acrobatics. Talking to Yuuto always felt like talking to a machine, but his levelheadedness was useful at times like these.

“I told the guys back at the fortress to focus fire on the antiaircraft guns, too, but we can’t leave it to them. It’d be more efficient if we got rid of the guns.”

“I believe we can let the fleet handle the rapid-fire guns as well. But even a shot from point-blank range might not be enough to sink this ship, unless it’s aimed directly at the control core…”

The thing was three hundred meters long, after all. Even the Stella Maris and the long-distance cruisers’ 40 cm guns would only be able to punch pinholes into it. This was a battleship, and it likely had damage-control systems to match its size and status. In other words, even if the hull were to be breached, it had mechanisms in place meant to minimize the amount of water flooding in.

Based on what Ishmael told them, nuclear-power boats like the Stella Maris had their engines heavily armored. So much so that even if an airplane were to crash into it—which would carry the same amount of force as a torpedo’s direct hit—it wouldn’t damage the reactor.

Since the Noctiluca had no visible smokestacks or funnels, it likely ran on nuclear power, too. So even if they were to aim at the engine, it wouldn’t do much damage. The central processor was this mechanical monstrosity’s sole weakness. The only thing that could definitely silence it, though one wouldn’t guess it by its exterior.

Vika connected through the Sensory Resonance. He’d likely been listening in through Lerche.

“I’ll handle the investigation and analysis with regard to that. Now that the Phönix are out and about, we can infiltrate it even at a Sirin’s size.”

The Alkonosts’ cockpit opened, and a small group of mechanical dolls in the shape of girls descended to the deck.

“I doubt there’s any corridor or hatch leading to its central processor, but going inside can give us insight we won’t be able to glean from the outside… This might be a Legion unit, but if the layout follows any logic, the internal facilities should be positioned roughly the same as an existing warship. If we assume this is meant to be a battleship or an amphibious assault ship, we can hazard a few guesses about the layout.”

Theo didn’t have the first clue what an amphibious assault ship even was.

“…I don’t really get it, but if you can pull that off, we’re counting on you, Prince.”

“I’d imagine I’m the only one who possibly could pull it off. Milizé and her control aides have their hands full, so I’m the only one with the leisure to pull it off.”

He spoke in a detached tone but then added, with a hint of annoyance:

“If Nouzen were here, we wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble to find out where the control core is.”

“…”

The presumptuous, offhanded jab made Theo grit his teeth. Vika had called himself a heartless Serpent of Shackles plenty of times before, and now Theo finally understood why.

“Yeah, well. He’s gone now… So we have to figure this one out on our own.”

He peeked out from behind the cover. Beyond the antiaircraft and rapid-fire guns loomed the weapon that shot Undertaker down—his killer, the railgun.

And to take it down…

“First, we take care of the antiaircraft guns.”

“Right,” Yuuto said. “I’d rather not get shot in the back, so let’s start by getting rid of the ones on the bow side.”

This fortress made of beams offered the Phönix plenty of footing to take advantage of. They jumped about in three-dimensional movement, shifting both horizontally and vertically to attack. To draw them out, some Juggernauts sprinted forward, acting as decoys. Armed with tank turrets that stressed penetrating force, the only armaments they had that could sweep across long distances were the heavy machine guns attached to their grappling arms. Those were a poor fit for fighting the Phönix, which were meant to hunt down vanguards focused on high-mobility combat.

To begin with, the Phönix trumped the Reginleif in terms of mobility. The mass-produced models were larger and looked as if their weight was greater, but their agility was the same as the original’s. Their frames were better armored, and their output had apparently been augmented to match it.

And while the 88 mm turret’s shells moved at high speeds, they were designed to concentrate their strength at one point at their very tip, and they couldn’t hope to effectively hit it. And so…

“Raiden, go ahead!”

“Right!”

As the decoy Juggernauts passed him by, Raiden and his temporary platoon rose to their feet, firing their autocannons and dual machine guns. This temporary platoon of Juggernauts had 40 mm autocannons loaded on their gun mount arms.

A shower of steel covered the entire range they predicted the Phönix might try to flee in. Having been drawn by their prey into bombardment range, the Phönix were hit by the barrage head-on.

A tank turret was a bad fit for handling them. And since the Juggernauts were slower than the Phönix, if they were to be chased down, they wouldn’t be able to shake them off. So instead, they took advantage of the pursuit—and used it to lure them into the kill zone.

This was a tactic they’d already established. Having predicted mass-produced Phönix might be included in this operation, Lena increased the number of personnel who had weapons that were better fit for handling them. In addition to the autocannons, each unit was assisted by Juggernauts with a buckshot-cannon configuration.

The area-suppression unit’s multi-rocket launchers had the Phönix registered in their target tracking data. In addition, all the Juggernauts’ computers were updated with the calculations for the original Phönix’s speed and mobility patterns.

And so a group of Phönix ran into the line of fire, where they were torn apart by the bullets. Of course, with Shin absent, they couldn’t confirm their voices had died down…meaning they looked away from their remains only after they were convinced none of the Phönix were playing dead.

—Next.

Raiden wiped the sweat from his brow and exhaled. He’d realized he was breathing quickly throughout that whole affair. They were able to put up a resistance since they’d already established countermeasures, but this wasn’t an easy battle by any means.

Still, the very fact that they had some way of fighting back meant they were doing better than Theo’s group, who had boarded the Noctiluca. They had to face off against that gigantic monster and its railguns.

Even still…

“Anju, Dustin, you can leave this place to us.”

“What?” Anju replied, visibly confused. “Raiden, the Phönix are still—”

“Go down. Cover for Theo… Help him, please.”

Anju swallowed her breath in shock. Realizing only now that he was absent, Snow Witch’s optical sensor gazed at the Noctiluca and the white forms fighting atop it with amazement.

“…Roger that. Good lord, Theo, what are you doing…?!”

“Shuga, Emma, we’ll be covering for them from here. Hurry up, though.”

A few Processors who were listening in stepped forward with Snow Witch and Sagittarius and moved away. As they did, Raiden could see Shiden’s Brísingamen squadron chasing the Phönix down like starved wolves, surrounding them and beating them down.