Chapter 121: Siege

The smoke rising from the pulverized breakwater drifted into the evening sky, but none of it penetrated the shimmering dome of the Aegis.

Inside the golden wall, the air was warm, stale, and smelled of incense mixed with the cold sweat of terrified men. Two high priests rushed forward to the inner ramp where Goddess Viona lay. They carried bowls of scented holy water and embroidered silk towels, their hands shaking so violently that half the water spilled across the flags.

"Your Divinity! Please, drink!" the elder priest stammered, kneeling at her side. "Let the sacred waters restore your divine mana!"

Viona did not touch the bowl. She slapped it away with the back of her bruised hand. The silver vessel clattered across the stone, splashing the priests’ white vestments.

She pushed herself up slowly, her silk gown torn at the knees and blackened by sulfur dust. Her golden hair hung loose and tangled around her shoulders. She leaned heavily against a stone pillar, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. Her divine core felt completely hollowed out—not simply depleted of mana, but bruised by the concussive force of the artillery shells that had detonated barely yards from her heels.

Up on the terrace, Prime Minister Belis and Lord Justin hurried down the winding stairs, escorted by four royal guards.

Justin’s face was completely white. He didn’t even look toward the sea anymore; his eyes darted nervously toward the overcast clouds, terrified that another flight of gray machines would drop out of the mist.

"Your Divinity..." Belis wept, dropping to both knees on the lower steps. "The exterior trenches... the entire northern ridge... gone. Over twelve thousand legionnaires are routed or buried in the collapsed bunkers. The rest are fleeing inland along the valley roads. The garrison officers cannot halt the retreat."

"Traitors," Viona whispered through clenched teeth. Her voice was cracked, raw, and trembling with venom. "All of them... cowards and traitors."

"They are broken men, Lady Viona!" Justin argued desperately, his voice cracking into high pitch. "Their shields cannot stop iron that explodes with the force of an earth titan! Our ballistas didn’t loose a single quarrel before the cliff was sheared off into the sea! What are they supposed to fight?!"

Viona spun around, her starry eyes blazing with cold celestial wrath.

"They fight with their lives!" she screamed, stepping toward Justin until the general had to shrink back against the stone railing. "They were consecrated to the Sun Throne! They were sworn to die for their goddess! And you let them flee like barnyard fowl before a dog?!"

Justin dropped his gaze, clenching his fists in silent, bitter humiliation.

Footsteps approached from the upper landing.

Ayanokoji, Kenji, and Miyuki walked down the stone stairs in steady, synchronized rhythm. Their postures were stiff, their left arms held tightly by the black Torment Bands. At the center of each dark band, the crimson gems pulsed with a dull, rhythmic light, feeding off the students’ mana pathways.

Kenji’s radiant longsword remained sheathed at his hip, his face empty of his usual smug arrogance. Miyuki held her wooden staff loosely, her eyes staring at the ground, unblinking and devoid of feeling.

Ayanokoji stopped at the bottom of the steps, his black abyssal spear held lightly in his right hand.

Viona looked at the boy. The sight of his completely unbothered, lifeless face grated against her raw nerves like a serrated dagger.

"You," Viona hissed, stepping close enough that her hot breath washed over his cheek. "You knew they would shoot the stone. You knew they would strike the cliffs."

Ayanokoji did not flinch. His red-tinted, glazed eyes met hers without a shred of emotion.

"Standard operational response, Master," Ayanokoji stated in his empty monotone. "When an entrenched enemy launches offensive fire from outside a fortified perimeter, modern doctrine dictates the immediate suppression of the firing platform. The breakwater was an unshielded position offering zero defilade against naval artillery. The exterior ridge was an elevated, static target visible to high-resolution electro-optical sensors."

"Do not lecture me on your mundane gibberish!" Viona snarled, raising her hand as if to strike him again.

Ayanokoji didn’t even raise his arm to block. He simply stood there, waiting for the blow like an iron mannequin.

Viona’s hand trembled in the air, then dropped back to her side. Striking a puppet that felt no pain or humiliation provided no satisfaction.

"What is their next move?" Viona demanded, her voice dropping into a desperate, hushed tone. "They stripped my seawall. They broke my trenches. Will they bring their iron ships into the bay? Will they land their soldiers on the docks?"

"Negative, Master," Ayanokoji replied smoothly.

Belis looked up, a glimmer of faint hope crossing his withered features. "They won’t land? They’re withdrawing?"

"The United States military does not conduct amphibious landings against an objective whose logistics can be dismantled remotely," Ayanokoji explained. "Entering the harbor brings their shallow-draft vessels within range of shore-based magical traps and narrow navigational choke points. They have no operational reason to risk infantry."

Ayanokoji tilted his head slightly toward the open bay, where the massive silhouette of the USS Gerald R. Ford sat completely still against the twilight horizon.

"They will maintain a continuous maritime blockade five miles out," Ayanokoji continued. "Their destroyers will interdict all coastal shipping. Their carrier strike wing will establish around-the-clock air patrols over the interior provinces. Any movement of grain, cattle, timber, or assembled military formations larger than a platoon will be spotted by infrared surveillance and destroyed from fifteen thousand feet."

He turned his dull gaze back to Viona.

"The capital and Port Solis will be entirely cut off from the rest of the continent. Within three weeks, the sixty thousand mouths inside this protective bubble will deplete the remaining storehouses. Disease will spread through the crowded refugee quarters. Morale will disintegrate. By month’s end, the city will fall without a single American rifle entering the gate."

The silence on the stone landing was thick and suffocating.

Justin slumped down onto the steps, his helmet slipping from his numb fingers and rolling down the flagstones with a hollow, metallic ring.

"Three weeks..." Justin whispered, staring blankly at his empty hands. "We have twenty thousand imperial paladins, forty thousand auxiliary infantry, and the supreme goddess herself... and we are on a three-week death clock."

"Shut your mouth!" Viona shrieked, kicking the rolling helmet so hard it bounced off the parapet and fell into the harbor water below.

She turned her back to the sea, walking frantically up the stairs toward the inner fortress gate.

"We return to the capital," Viona commanded, her voice shrill with suppressed terror. "Belis, assemble the High Temple mages! Order every consecrated altar across the holy city to divert all faith reserves to the royal palace! If the Americans want to starve us, I will summon the sacred food of the heavens! I will call down celestial ambrosia to sustain my legions!"

Belis followed behind her with hurried, uneven steps. "Your Divinity... the celestial summoning rituals require weeks of purification, and they consume immense amounts of holy mana! If you divert mana to sustain food magic, the Aegis will weaken!"

"Then let it weaken!" Viona shouted, her eyes wild with madness. "Do you want to eat dirt, old man?! Do you want to starve behind these walls while that anomaly laughs on his iron boat?!"

She stopped at the grand archway leading to the capital road, looking back one last time at the western ocean.

The sun had sunk beneath the water, leaving the sky in deep indigo darkness.

Out on the waves, tiny white and green navigational lights blinked quietly along the flight deck of the giant American carrier. The fleet was calm, anchored, and entirely undisturbed by the chaos consuming the shore. They were not in a hurry. They had all the fuel, all the food, and all the time in the world.

Viona turned away, clutching her torn silk robes tightly around her chest as she stepped into the shadow of the fortress gates.

Behind her, Ayanokoji, Kenji, and Miyuki followed in absolute silence, their dark bands glowing faint crimson in the falling night, keeping step like mechanical soldiers marching toward their own inevitable grave.