Bab 144: Chapter 143 - The Beginning of the End Part 1
Another month flew by like a breeze. Everyone, whether on board the newly finished Orbital Fortresses fleet, those working tirelessly in Mars manufacturing facilities to produce war supplies and those on Earth living their days following their routines. Everyone can feel the palpable tense atmosphere hanging in the air.
During the last few days, less people are seen relaxing and have been going all out in their preparation, especially Adam's group. It was as if they were making their final preparations.
Adam for one is looking down on Earth from the Orbital Fortress with his naked eyes. His sight locked at the black and red gigantic tower that the Iron Blood built which pulsated in the dark with ominous bloody red light.
"Are you going to simply watch instead of destroying it before whatever they were summoning, arrived on Earth?" The all white and slight blue Siren leader who sat on her organic looking blue jellyfish rigging asked with her usual unreadable and expressionless face.
"No. That portal they are opening is the portal to Timeline Zero. This is our only way to travel to Deus X's world. Although, we would have quite the battle ahead of us. His Apostle and all." Adam said after slightly shaking his head.
"USS Bon Homme Richard META and the literal army of Steel Leviathans." Observer Zero noted.
"Indeed." Adam nodded.
"Then how about the Iron Blood? Are we going to just kill them?" She wonders what Adam would decide.
Adam fell silent for a moment and sighed. "It's unfortunately impossible to free them from Deus X's influence. It was too deeply ingrained in their Mental Cube. However, we will save those that we could." Adam said with resolution as a silver haired Iron Blood Heavy Cruiser came to mind. "Although, saving them wouldn't be an easy endeavor either because they know I am going to save them and made it as difficult as possible." He sighed again as he already saw what 'surprise' Deus X prepared for him.
"Is it going to be dangerous?" Observer Zero asked, looking a little worried despite her expression remaining relatively impassive.
"Just a minor nuisance." Adam shrugs but she had a feeling that his statement was a lie but she didn't press further for the truth.
———
In the Command Room, Angie and her staff made up of weaker shipgirls that decided to contribute elsewhere from the battlefield, were busy handling an evacuation from the designated soon-to-be warzone that Adam ordered her to handle.
A big part of southern Europe was evacuated. Of course, there are stubborn ones like those remnants of the resistance group that Adam didn't even care about anymore.
Majority of the people are evacuated to the newly liberated territories as the sea is no longer under Siren threat as Siren now becomes Adam's ally. Those evacuations were handled using a heavy personnel carrier which was basically gigantic flying cargo designed to deliver troops en masse from the Orbital Fortress down to the surface. But they are adequate to evacuate people as a few of them is enough to evacuate an entire city in less than three hours.
Halfway through the evacuation, the black tower in the sea of Germany started to shoot out a red pillar of light to the sky.
"Maste—"
"I know." Adam's hologram suddenly appeared and interjected. "Prepare the Heavy Laser Main Batteries."
"Yes." Angie replied before informing the entire fleet. "Prepare the Heavy Laser Main Batteries for firing, synchronize firing with the Flagship.
"Yes." The eleven designated shipgirls that control the Orbital Fortresses replied.
Of the eleven Orbital Fortress, four of the five factions took control of their own Orbital Fortresses except Iris Libre who was small in number and shared one with the Royal Navy. The commandeer of these flying fortresses are Enterprise, New Jersey for Eagle Union, Queen Elizabeth, Monarch and Richelieu for Royal Navy, Nagato, Musashi and Mikasa for Sakura Empire and Sovetskaya Belorussiya, Sovetskaya Rossiya and Sovetskaya Soyuz for Northern Parliament. Each commanding one Orbital Fortresses filled to the brim with autonomous combat mechs and TSF alongside with a logistical crew consists of Autonomous Dolls.
The heavy laser cannons are charging and waiting as the red pillar of light forms a large circular ring above it before the inside begins to connect with another space and time.
"Begin countdown, 15 seconds. Aim for the Leviathans." Adam said and as soon as he did, a black foggy mass poked out from the portal as more and more of it crawled out eagerly from the portal.
"3… 2… 1… Fire!"
All twelve Orbital Fortresses concentrate their attack on the black foggy mass that resembles a serpentine dragon, slamming them down to the sea before the sea itself explodes from a steam explosion, causing a thin layer of fog to obscure their view of the situation.
"No visual confirmation."
"It's alright." Adam said as he can see directly at the future and he confirmed that the attack did melt a lot of them down since they are literally steel monsters and the heat from the laser did some number on them although they did not die and are still hanging on their life stubbornly.
"Proceed as planned. Deploy the Mechanic Quincy." Adam ordered and Angie immediately shot down a few pods from the Orbital Fortress, each containing four Mechanical Quincy.
Once the pod landed, the Mechanical Quincy inside activated and drew Adam's power since the environment here is not Reishi rich.
Those Soldats immediately engage in battle with the surviving Steel Leviathan with a barrage of Heilig Pfeil which proves to be very effective as the nature of Quincy's soul destroying energy affects the energy that gives life to the Steel Leviathans as the blackish fog that is their true form was rend by the Soldat's attacks.
Under the barrage of Heilig Pfeil, the Steel Leviathans soul was torn apart and left the steel body sunked into the depth of the sea.
Observer Zero looked in surprise at how easily the Soldats took care of the Steel Leviathan when the Siren had struggled so much to defeat them and were losing against them.
Adam noticed that look of shock and decided to explain. "The reason they were killed easily is because Quincy is their bane. The Steel Leviathan's true form is the black fog and the steel body is just a false body possessed. Quincy power's special trait is it obliterates the soul of its target." He said that is the truth.
Quincy's power absorbed the soul of their enemy to feed Yhwach who gave them their power. So, the Steel Leviathan when it was killed, the spirit that possessed it was torn apart literally and funnel back to Adam and strengthen him slightly.
The reason Siren and KANSEN struggle against the Steel Leviathan is because they literally have very little ways to actually harm the spirit that possessed the steel body. Hence, in most of their encounters, the Steel Leviathan still survive and they could only stop it temporarily by obliterating their physical body, forcing them to retreat and remake their body.
"I see. It's not because they were invincible. But because the method we have in our disposal is incapable of permanently killing them." Observer Zero noted with a frown. "Anyway, it didn't seem that Bon Homme Richard would come to us. Should I start hijacking the portal?"
"Go ahead." Adam gave her a nod before she quickly got to work and as she said, hijacked the space-time rift to open wider, causing a giant rift to appear on the Earth's thermosphere above Europe.
Adam ordered the Soldats to rescue the few unaffected Iron Blood shipgirls that were held as captive before he ordered the entire fleet to plunge into the spatial rift.
———
Prinz Eugen was sleeping as she usually does since hunger and exhaustion didn't really give her much choice to stay awake and use up the already limited energy she has. However, when the pillar of lights started raining down from the heavens and was followed by massive explosions that caused the sea to tremble in its wake, she didn't have much of a choice but to open her eyes and figure out what the hell was happening.
When she did open her eyes, she saw a large, gigantic, serpentine shaped creature shrouded by black fog, crawling out from a portal and then assaulted endlessly by a barrage of arrows like a machine gun fires, raining down at the foggy creature.
It made zero sense and it didn't help that her head felt dizzy and disoriented by her already sorry and exhausted state added with the chaotic battle that caused deafening explosions every passing seconds.
She wanted to believe this was just a crazy dream and get back to sleep. But the sea water splashed at her, caused by the turbulent sea from the steam explosions, tells that what she experienced isn't a fever dream but it's reality.
Then, out of nowhere, she saw some shipgirls running at her with their rigging still equipped, jumping onto the platform after weathering through the chaotic sea embroiled in an intense battle of angelic figures and foggy serpentine dragons that reach a few hundred meters tall from what she can see.
"Eugen! Do you hear me! Eugen?!
"23?" Eugen turns away from the scene of battle and looks at the shipgirl knelt down next to her trying to pry the cuff and collar open. "Am I still dreaming or am I dead already?" She sighed with exhaustion before she fell limp and relent to the situation.
"You are not dead yet. Neither am I and Lord Bismarck! It takes more than just cannon shots to kill us. You must survive, Eugen!" Z23 reassured Prinz Eugen and tried yanking the chain open but to no avail.
"Miss Z23. I'm afraid we can't afford to dally anymore." Kuroshio said as she grabbed her shoulder and pointed at the Steel Leviathan body falling towards the platform and sank it instantly from the Leviathan's sheer size.
Kuroshio didn't even hesitate and used her cannon to shoot the chain to break it before she and Akatsuki carried Eugen on their shoulders. Grabbing the still stunned Z23, Kuroshio leads everyone to the edge of the platform where a few Iron Blood submarine shipgirls are waiting for them to make their escape through this chaotic sea with waves that reach hundreds of meters tall due to the battle and explosions that are still happening.
Once they reached the edge of the platform, they didn't hesitate and immediately jumped off the platform and plunged directly into the sea, swallowed by the waves.
"Puah! Haah… Haah…" They all surfaced and gasped for air before the submarine ship girls found them.
"We secured the target." Kuroshio said to the lead U-Boat submarine.
"Well, let's get the hell out of here before it gets any more chaotic." U-101 said and told them to hold on to their riggings firmly. "Hang on tight. This gonna be a rough trip." She said as the Wolfpack hurried to rush back to the Iron Blood port.
At the port, Bismarck and her reinforcement, Tripitz led her small detachment of the Iron Blood fleet and Sakura Empire's allies, to storm the port base and attack the brainwashed Friedrich der Große camp to liberate the rest of their imprisoned sisters just like Eugen before regrouping with Nagato who offered them help.
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