Rewrite That Witch
CH1467 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 1467: Different Fates

The chill ran the full length of Nassaupelle’s back.

He had observed the iron birds releasing their bombs during dives. If the first assault had come from a large metallic object dropped from altitude, then the bigger iron bird Undeserved had just described was a perfect match. The question of when the humans had managed to build aircraft of that size was secondary — the structural principle was the same. And if its belly held nothing but an open hole, it meant the enemy had already dropped the second object.

Then where is it now?

He changed the Deity of Gods’s heading and looked upward through the smoke. He abandoned the attempt almost immediately. Without the Eye Demon guards, his half-blind eyes — several pairs of them, all impaired — could accomplish nothing against that sky. There were traces of combat between Bogle Beasts and iron birds everywhere. Any black fragment falling could be debris from an aircraft, a piece of a Bogle Beast’s limb, a Primal Demon who had lost his mount.

He couldn’t even locate the great black iron bird Undeserved had seen. The billowing smoke had spread across dozens of miles, raising a continuous screen above the city. Reading the overall situation from low elevation was impossible.

“Did it release something? Is there a black object descending rapidly — anywhere?” Mask roared through the consciousness channel.

“Yes, there are things falling everywhere.” Undeserved’s reply was exactly as expected. “If you want me to find something specific, you’ll need to describe it better.”

There’s no more time.

The understanding arrived cleanly. Final.

What else can be done?

How does one dodge a strike like this?

Hypotheses surfaced and were dismissed in rapid succession.

This won’t work. That won’t either. Not that.

Mask arrived at the edge of what he had. Against a weapon of this nature, with a payload of this size, in a platform this vast and slow, there was nothing left that had not already been tried or already failed.

The Deity of Gods was too massive. A directional change in this interval was impossible. Even the command for full retreat issued directly through the core apparatus was only producing the mountain body’s slow, inertia-driven grind forward.

Intercept the falling object? The precise location was unknown; its speed was beyond anything on the ground; and the Bogle Beast forces were already scattered, converging on the large iron bird. The Birth Tower’s consciousness transmission only reached higher ascendants who had touched the Realm of Mind — there was no means of relaying the threat to the thousands of Primal and Junior Demons locked in combat, in the time remaining.

The only thing Nassaupelle could hope was that those one-headed creatures had enough capacity to recognize “another falling abnormality” and act on it.

The fate of the race had moved beyond his will.

Sylvie bit down on her lower lip and held it.

The Ark of Peace was trailing smoke from multiple places. The bomber’s nose had been caved in by impacts; two of its four engines were still working, but that was not going to reverse what was coming. The plane had passed the point of controllable descent.

Around the Ark of Peace was a press of Devilbeasts from every direction — throwing explosive spears at a plane that had already lost control. The scene was that of vultures working meat that was still moving.

This was the squadron’s decision. She understood it.

To tighten the bomb’s margin of error, the Ark of Peace had descended from seven thousand meters to four thousand — already inside the safety threshold — and had held the trajectory that gave the bomb the clearest path into the city’s interior. Once they committed to that approach vector, passing through the fatal irradiation zone, there was no turning back. That had been Eagle Face’s calculation, not hers, and he had made it with full knowledge.

After she had transmitted the modified targeting parameters, the aircraft commander had said two things to her.

“Ark of Peace, roger that. “Thank you. The rest of the mission is yours.”

As though this were the most ordinary thing.

If she had not relayed those numbers. If she had chosen a safer drop trajectory instead.

Wendy’s hand found hers — steady, quiet, certain. “This is not your fault. Eagle Face understood his responsibilities precisely. He completed his mission better than it could have been asked of him. If the Ark of Peace had not drawn off those numbers, the Aerial Knights’ losses would have been inestimable. Let the fleet retreat from the blast zone and prepare for the impact.”

Sylvie knew Wendy was right. Eagle Face’s sacrifice could not be made meaningless by guilt. She had to use what she had.

She breathed in, rallied herself, and broadcast through sigil and transmitter simultaneously. The planes that received the signal turned and used their speed advantage to leave the engagement zone.

And then Sylvie saw something she could not immediately account for.

Not all the Aerial Knights were retreating. Three Fury of Heaven planes had turned away from the withdrawal — and were flying directly toward the demons’ King City.

“Do you understand what you’re doing!?” Finkin’s voice filled the receiver with the particular quality of a man who has already been ignored and knows it. “This is not a training exercise!”

“Obviously!” Good roared back. He fired and took apart a Devilbeast that had fixed itself on a direct intercept course ahead of him. “If we all pull out, the demons are going to notice that the Ark of Peace has already dropped its bomb. Changing the bomb’s trajectory mid-fall isn’t easy, but who knows what they can manage. If you don’t believe me — look at that plane. He figured it out the same way I did!”

The logic behind Good’s decision not to follow the squadron upward had been simple: if the demons were intelligent enough to understand that a bomb had been dropped from altitude, they were intelligent enough to try to stop it. The second high-explosive bomb weighed four tons. It was fitted with a God’s Stone of Retaliation. Spears and magic stones couldn’t damage it directly. But the condition for its effect was that it explode within the core of the floating city. The mission briefings had stressed this repeatedly. A Devilbeast that happened into the bomb’s path by chance rather than design was unlikely — but not impossible. And Good was unwilling to leave that to chance.

He was not alone in this.

Manfeld Castein had been first. He had seen it — Manfeld’s plane had moved the moment the bomb left the Ark of Peace. Fast.

The three Fury of Heaven aircraft — Good, Finkin, Manfeld — held a triangular formation and drove down after the falling bomb. Their engines screamed through their earmuffs. Good could see the stabilizer fins at the bomb’s tail end. If he had been flying an older Fire of Heaven, the airframe would have broken apart at this speed.

Two Devilbeasts attempted to close in. They didn’t make it.

And then the Deity of Gods’s hole appeared before them — a ragged wound in the Blackstone dome, the opening they had seen from a distance now close enough to count the edges of the fractured stone.

Discussion

Suggest a change