Chapter 1469: The Fall of a City
Good would swear to the end of his days that it was the most impossible thing he had ever seen.
A volcano hanging in the air — but this one erupted in every direction at once, not only from the mouth. After the world-shaking detonation, the dome’s top burned in every direction at once, and from points all around the city’s perimeter, hundreds of dark-red lava flows began to pour. He could imagine the interior clearly enough: the heat had transformed the Red Mist into thick flame as oil transforms when ignited, raising the air temperature past the point of swell, finally bursting outward through every crack and cave nearest the surface.
There was nowhere for the demons inside to go. Even chambers reinforced against pressure and assault would become ovens. A thousand degrees Celsius, sealed in Blackstone. They would be cooked.
A scene of hell. And despite everything, despite the creature they were, Good found himself pitying them.
His own situation demanded his attention.
The ten or so kilometers between the center of the Deity of Gods and its outer edge constituted a zone where nothing was safe. The chain reactions showed no sign of abating. Flames fountained tens of meters into the air at irregular intervals — sharp enough to gut a plane on contact — while from above, a different problem was arriving. The initial explosion had thrown stone and burning gelatinous matter into the air, and that matter was beginning to fall. He glanced up. Dense fire-plumes overhead, suppressing the light of dawn, falling in a curtain that covered the whole area above him.
“Are you seeing this?” Finkin’s voice was already halfway to despair.
“Obviously. I still have eyes.”
“The impact radius is insane — we don’t have the time to fly clear before it falls! When those things come down, we’re finished!”
“No…” Static crackle. “…there’s…a place…” More static. “…shelter…”
Manfeld. Distance and interference had smeared his signal, but the meaning came through.
“I agree,” Good replied, “but we need to reach it first.”
“Wait — are you serious?” Finkin’s processing was fast, as always. “With all of that about to land on us, you want to shelter under that?”
The logic was straightforward and the alternatives were worse. After the second explosion, Good could see the Deity of Gods had already listed. Only by a few degrees, barely visible from here, but those few degrees told him everything: the magic power core driving the city’s lift had been damaged. A plummet was only a matter of when. If they could fly beneath the Deity of Gods before the burning rain fell — use the city itself as a ceiling — they would be protected from the eruption above. The risk was the falling city. Any mistake in speed or heading, any failure of control for even a moment, and they would hit the ground or the Blackstone walls. The outcome of that was identical to being struck by the fiery rain.
But it was not a matter of luck.
Good opened the throttle to maximum and drove toward the Deity of Gods’s flank.
On the Seagull, Sylvie watched a city die.
The Red Mist’s violent expansion had not confined itself to the city’s interior — it drove through the sluice gates at the tower’s base in burning columns, enveloping every demon in their path before flowing outward over the surrounding ground like a geyser of fire that spread in seconds, kilometers in every direction.
Then the stone rain began. Fragments — partly melted, wholly burning, some large enough to flatten a building — fell without pattern across the area. The Devilbeasts that had been protecting the city had nowhere to go. The burning sky was more thorough than any weapon Sylvie had ever catalogued.
Farther away, the surrounding demon camp had suffered the eruption’s edge rather than its center. The casualties were severe but not total. The troops who had withdrawn earliest had lost fighters but kept formation. What they could not absorb — what she could see on every face that had a face, in every stance that had a stance — was the sight of the Deity of Gods, which they had regarded as a miracle and a home, turning into a live volcano above them. Several stood motionless in the open, watching the Blackstone tower tilt toward them.
The Deity of Gods had gone entirely passive after two explosions. It dragged two lines of flame, one from each rupture, and sank along its original heading. The pyramid’s base met the ground. The collision triggered a third detonation — structural pressure released as a shockwave — and the compressed air within the city expelled outward in a rolling pulse.
Under the inertia, the floating island continued to slide. Demon camps, supply stations, and the network of scout positions were crushed flat. Friction slowed the mass over the space of a kilometer, leaving a gouge in the earth wide enough to swallow a town, before it stopped.
The eruption had weakened now. Smoke and dust had complicated the scene and taken some heat from the flames. But it did not mean the catastrophe was over. The interior of the Deity of Gods was a boiling furnace, evident from the red glow at every surface crack. The fires and heat would need months to exhaust themselves. Before that day, every demon who had been inside the city had become fuel.
Sylvie had one concern that cut through the rest.
Three Aerial Knights had gone beneath the Deity of Gods.
”…Have you found them?” Tilly’s voice. She had been asking at intervals, maintaining the precision of someone who is keeping themselves from saying the more urgent thing.
“No. Not yet.” Sylvie kept her field of view on the edge of the settling dust. The three planes had entered the gap between the city’s underside and the ground during the slide and the fall; to survive that interval required a level of control that she could not guarantee on their behalf.
If they didn’t appear — that conclusion was not one she would reach before the evidence required it.
“Wait.”
Two dark points. Then a third. They moved like rock fragments thrown by the shockwave, low and fast — but they did not fall. They were finding their angles. They were controlling their directions.
Sylvie amplified her vision until the insignia on the planes’ tails came into focus: three gray Fury of Heaven biplanes, coated in dust that covered their paint and filled their outlines, no longer sleek, no longer clean. But whole.
She tried to say something. Nothing came. Something had lodged in her chest, a sensation without a name, that required a moment before it could be moved past.
She breathed in through her nose.
“Your Highness.” She picked up the sigil. “The three of them are all right.”
“Is that so.” Tilly’s voice had shed its particular quality of control. “I knew it.”
“If you had known, you wouldn’t have kept asking.” Andrea’s voice, dry and certain.
Wendy smiled and shook her head. “Inform everyone to return to the cruiser. We bring the news of our victory back to His Majesty Roland.”
Chapter 1469 - The Fall of a City
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Good swore that it was the most inconceivable scene he had ever witnessed in his life.
If it had to be described, it would be a volcano floating in the air—and this volcano was not only spewing out from the mouth, but from all directions!
After the explosion that shook the world, not only was the top of the dome quilted with raging flames, even the regions surrounding the city spewed with hundreds of dark red lava flows. He could imagine the situation within the Deity of Gods: due to the immense heat, the Red Mist had transformed into thick flames like oil being set on fire. This caused the air temperature to rise and cause the swelling, only to finally explode out of the crevices and caves nearer to the surface!
This meant that the demons had nowhere to escape. Even if they were to hide in chambers capable of withstanding high pressure and attacks, they would be cooked to death by the high temperatures that reached above a thousand degrees Celsius.
It was definitely a scene that depicted hell.
Even though they were the enemy, Good sympathized with them.
But his current situation was nowhere better.
The short distance of roughly ten kilometers from the center of the Deity of Gods to the edge could be called a perilous zone with danger at every turn. There were no signs of the chain reactions abating. The flames that were able to shoot up tens of meters high with ease like sharp knives that could destroy the plane with a single touch. If this problem was something he could overcome with his skills, then the “fiery rain” falling from the sky was another problem out of his control.
The fragments that spewed out along with the initial explosion had started falling. They were either rock chunks that half-melted, or burning gelatinous substances. Good only had to raise his head to see the dense fire plumes above him. They looked to have covered the sky and even suppressed the light from dawn.
“Goddamnit, are you seeing these things!” Finkin whined on the other end of the transmitter.
“Obviously, I’m not blind!”
“Its impact radius is way too exaggerated; we won’t even have time to fly out with so little time! When they fall, it’ll be difficult for us to escape!”
“No… Crrr … there’s a place… Crrr… to avoid this.” At this moment, an additional voice suddenly sounded.
Obviously, it was Manfeld that had taken the initiative first. Due to their dispersion, they had encountered different obstructions that led to his signal being fuzzy.
“I agree, but the premise is that we are able to make it there!” Good replied.
“Wait… are you guys for real?” Finkin reacted quickly. “All of those things are about to fall onto us and you’re thinking of using that to take shelter?”
He knew that his comrades were right. In fact, after the second explosion, Good already knew that His Majesty’s plan was effective.
The Deity of Gods was now clearly slightly tilted to the side. Although it was several hundreds of meters off the ground, this small change meant that the magic power core controlling the flight of the city had been damaged, and a plummet was only a matter of time.
If they were able to fly beneath the Deity of Gods before the fiery rain hailed upon them, they would be able to avoid the fate of being burned by the eruption. But upon considering that the floating island was falling continuously, it held an equal amount of risk. If they had any failure over their
control over their direction and speed even once, they would either plant straight into the ground or crash into the Blackstone walls. This conclusion was no better than being struck and taken out by the fiery rain.
But it did not rely on fate!
As the plane finally gained stability, Good accelerated to the plane’s maximum capabilities and soared towards the side of the Deity of Gods!
…
On the Seagull, Sylvie saw the destruction of the demons’ King’s City.
The violent expansion of the Red Mist not only surged through the city, but charged out of the sluice gates at the bottom of the tower. The burning Red Mist had turned into thick flame pillars and engulfed all the gathered demons in a flash, followed by roasting the ground where it flowed like a spewing flintlock, extensively spreading over a few kilometers in seconds.
Following that were the rain of falling rocks—mostly wrapped in flames or were completely red themselves—falling onto the ground in unbroken succession. The Devilbeasts tasked to protect the city suffered under the flames, regardless of where they tried to escape. It was difficult to escape the wrath of the heavens.
A distance away from King’s City was a demon camp that suffered equally severe repercussions, but they were ultimately only on the periphery of the eruption’s destruction. Although the troops that had retreated from the beginning had suffered losses, it was not a complete decimation. To them, it was the fact that the Deity of Gods they hailed as a miracle had turned into a live volcano city was the true setback they couldn’t handle.
Sylvie saw many demons that stood in their place motionlessly as they stared at the Blackstone tower falling towards them.
After experiencing two explosions, the Deity of Gods was completely paralyzed.
It dragged two spewing lines of flames and sank along its original path. A moment later, the giant pyramid at the bottom made contact with the ground. The collision between the two triggered a third boom and the pressurized air within was unleashed as a small shockwave.
Under the inertia, the floating island continued to slide forward, crushing the camp and scout stations into smithereens. As it slowed down from friction, it left a kilometer wide ravine in the ground.
At this time, the spewing flames had weakened with the churning smoke and dust having a slight hand in the result, but it did not signify the end of the catastrophe. The interior of the Deity of Gods was similar to a boiling stove, apparent from the glowing red cracks seen on the surface. Perhaps the flames and heat would require several months to completely go out, but before that, all the demons that resided inside the city had turned into its fuel.
The only thing Sylvie cared about were the three that had charged beneath the Deity of Gods.
“… How is it, do you see them?” Tilly inquired on their whereabouts as well.
“No, not at the moment…” She bit her lips and replied. With the Deity of Gods experiencing the destruction, fall, and slide, to follow alongside the Deity of Gods held unfathomable risks. If they didn’t appear, it would mean the inevitable—
“Wait a minute.” Suddenly, her Magic Eyes noticed a few inconspicuous black dots. They appeared similarly to rocks being thrown out by the shockwave, but they never fell to the ground.
Sylvie gathered her remaining magic power and enhanced her vision, to see three gray biplanes flying out of the billowing dust, the insignia on their tails still as distinct as ever! Although the planes appeared to be in shambles, with a layer of dust all over the wings, making them no longer as sleek as before, they remained intact.
At that moment, she was unable to say anything, as though something had gotten stuck inside her chest.
After breathing in through her nose, Sylvie picked up the Sigil and replied,
“Your Highness… the three are fine.”
“Is that so?” Tilly’s tone relaxed by a clear margin. “I knew it.”
“If you had known, you wouldn’t have kept asking.” Andrea smirked by the side.
Wendy smiled and shook her head. “Inform everyone to return to the cruiser. Let us bring the news of our victory back to His Majesty Roland!”