"Seeing it closer is breathtaking. How marvelous." Willet murmured. His red eyes glinted like rubies and widened as he stared awestruck. Resting his elbows on the armchairs of his seat, Willet followed along the bridges and ships, delving deeper and deeper into the structure until he stopped and gazed at the largest ship directly in the center. Soon, a smile extended from his lips, and he walked down to the window, an inch away from the glass.
No words could describe the sheer majesty of the black sun before him, all lying on the tip of his tongue, yet unable to form. He grew curious about how this structure was conceived and who had thought of it. Surely, the genius behind it, a person capable of creating these weapons beyond what others could barely imagine, would also be a grand prize for his home.
A soldier entered the central command room and bowed before reporting, "My Lord. All four fleets are in position. The three Marshal Exalts are currently engaged with the enemy. They await only your signal."
"Good. Then, let's start the hunt." Willet lost his smile and hardened his expression. His eyes no longer held the spark of excitement from earlier, cooling down to a narrow shape, sharp like swords. The men around him began to shudder and quickly bowed with their heads lowered to the floor. He pointed at the black sun and said in a commanding tone, "Pierce through them."
The black sun enlarged bit by bit, and flickers of red, orange, and yellow flashed across its surface in a checkered pattern. Even from inside the Vorpalare, the quaking of thunderous booms trembled through the metal hull, spilling his wine onto the clean floor. Willet dusted off his shoulders and picked up his fallen wineglass as many of the enemy shells burst apart into spheres of red infernos and black smoke right outside his windows.
After the pourer refilled his wine, Willet took a sip and swirled the contents around while his men shouted like a group of children in a sandbox. He had enough. He swung his wineglass on the table, spilling wine everywhere. Everyone turned to him, and he threw the remnant of glass in his hand at one of the soldiers. The wineglass handle hit the motionless soldier, and the soldier quickly stood at attention, as did the rest.
"Are you not the proud soldiers of the Undying Flame Sect and our beloved Empire?" Willet said over the sounds of gunfire and explosions happening outside. "Scared because of this strange machine? Because it's unknown? Because it's hammering us with hundreds of cannons? We've faced many battles together on the frontlines and survived through it all. You are all here because I trust you. Don't embarrass me or destroy that trust with this horrid display."
"Yes!" Everyone bowed and returned to their stations, no longer cowering and facing the scenery of smoke and flames with their sights forward and steady.
Content by his soldier's diligence, Willet sat back in his command chair and asked, "Status report?"
"Currently twenty-five miles away from the black sun. Fifteen ships have fallen so far. Overall, very healthy." One soldier answered to Willet's delight.
The flare rounds were doing the job well to prevent the worst amount of loss. Willet enjoyed this feeling of a plan falling together like completing a puzzle. The joy became more pronounced since it was the fruit of ceaseless planning for the past few days with Gen, Edgil, and Sasel. The Vorpalare needed to get close to activate their devastating power and destroy this black sun.
"Twenty miles away."
Hearing this update, Willet finally let a smile break out, his heart beating faster in anticipation. He couldn't wait to reach it and walk along the wreckage of its ruined form. Now, it was no longer a black sun. The firey burst of bright reddish lights flickering endlessly on its surface turned it into a third sun standing below. As expected, the middle layer of airships rained down their shells onto him at twenty miles range.
"Incredible. If it were not for our arrow formation for the sake of protecting the Vorpalare within, we would have suffered far heavier losses. I wonder who's the Shipmaster in charge." Willet remarked in admiration, fixating his gaze on the flagship in the center, completely serious. "Just wait. I'll be there soon."
"Fifteen miles. Our ships on the outermost layer have fallen. Their piercing projectiles are strange and highly destructive."
"Press on. Speed is the key to this fight." Willet didn't glance at the soldier who reported the update. He crossed his arms and watched. Little by little, his enemy filled the entire window, a stretch of black from one edge of the large window to another, allowing him to examine it up close.
"Ten miles. Their third layer is firing!"
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"Have the airships follow the plan. Not a single one can be out of place." Willet ordered. While he had faith in his soldiers, the earlier display made him stop and think. The unexpected could have dire consequences; no one knew anything about the black sun's third layer. A single moment of doubt was not tolerable to him.
"Eight miles." The soldier reported in a trembling voice, not from a hasty emotion or fear, but because of the tremors of the enemy's attacks reverberating through the ship.
"Five miles! We are exposed!"
The time was almost here. Willet also began to quake, starting from his quivering shoulders down to his trembling knees, almost as if he were having a seizure. It wasn't from the explosions outside or from a baseless emotion like fear, which he held in utmost disgust. No. His heart bled with excitement that reached down to the hairs along his skin.
"One mile!"
"Prepare for battle!" Willet shouted. Right when he was about to release his Ein, something odd occurred. His pupils shrank as a blank stare reached out through the window. A metallic guttural rumble forced everyone quiet, and the black sun stopped firing. One by one, the connectors between the airships detached, and the structure began to unfurl like a blooming flower, inviting them into the opening it had formed.
Some connectors remained to keep some airships bound together. Willet no longer thought of it as a blooming flower. All of the airships were still connected to the main flagship in the center, but now they expanded out like tendrils, arching farther past and behind his fleet. It was like entering the maw of a kraken, surrounded by its deadly tentacles. Willet paled and felt his heart still for a moment, a chill flowing through his veins.
Unlike before, the sounds of their cannons now resounded from all directions, and the ship swayed from left to right, up and down. Willet grasped his chair to remain balanced, still aghast at the sudden shift in the tides of battle. He never imagined the black sun to be capable of such a movement. The connecting bridges looked so rigid and important to the structure that suddenly detaching them never came up in his thoughts.
More explosions rang from the top, bottom, forward, and backward. His men lost their balance and also clung to their seats like him.
"My Lord! We're taking heavy damage from the rear. Our flare rounds are too few to handle the shells in all directions!"
"Bastards….Those bastards…." Willet murmured. He banged his fist on the table, crushing it to the floor. A few heavy exhales later, he straightened his back and redid his buttons, one by one, until it was neat and proper again. Willet found his calm and addressed his men, "Give me the update."
"The distance is now five miles to their flagship. Heavy losses of our protective ships in the rear and bottom. However, the enemy's barrier is down."
"It's down?" Willet perked up at those words. The entire reason for having the Vorpalare was to bring down the powerful defenses of the black sun. The previous planning had failed due to the enemy's unconventional and hidden means, but the battle was not over. He found a new way out. "Put all speed into the Vorpalare. Destroy their flagship. We can bridge five miles in no time."
"Sir! Incoming!" Shouts interrupted him, and Willet saw a strange object fly toward him. It spiraled like a drill. Rays of Ein flashed and surged out, concentrating into a dense ball of Ein at its spiral tip. It was too late to dodge. Willet shouted for his men to brace themselves. No matter what, the Vorpalare could pierce through whatever they threw at them.
It began with a slight shudder, the metal groaning across the ship's body. Then, everything flew out of place, papers scattered everywhere, chairs and tables piled to the ceiling and fell into a pile of scraps, and the windows shattered into a million glass crystals. Willet remained floating in the air but was nearly forced forward by the sudden rushing of air that attempted to suck out anything in the exposed room.
"Impossible…." Willet gaped, his mouth slightly open as his shoulders hung down. The Vorpalare was unable to move forward. No, that wasn't right. Willet saw it was moving, only very slowly. An impossible event was happening before him. Let alone a city barrier; this thing shouldn't have the means to accomplish such a feat.
"Rush out and destroy that thing!" Willet shouted and burst out through the window, followed by his men. At the very tip of his ship, down the long red side of the Vorpalare, the dense ball of Ein was contending with the piercing power of the Vorpalare. Ripples of Ein pulsed away from the dense ball, reaching out as far as the tendrils of ships miles away. A closer look showed it spun incredibly fast, faster than anything he had ever seen.
"Watch out!" Willet felt a sudden pressure come from above and rose with a burst of flames. He willed his Ein into his hands and formed three hot meteors, firing them at the same location. They exploded with immense power and rained fire down everywhere. His men protected the Vorpalare while Exalts finally came from the enemy's side to protect their strange device.
"Fire, white hair, and red eyes….Are you related to the Claude Family?" Within the black smoke of his spell's aftereffect, a voice spoke calmly, consistent without a single breath out of place. The smoke cleared, and Willet beheld his enemy, a strange warrior, donning a brown ragged robe and armored only on his limbs and head, the helmet hiding his face. Beside him was a majestic creature he had only seen in records of mythical Exalt beasts. Its antler wings burned with flames as feathers, the hooves spewing out streams of fire, and the large antlers branching like the branches of a willow tree bearing red leaves.
"A Grade Six? You must be an interesting person to get out of that unscathed. Is that also a Prielapos? Our intel never showed anyone like you ever in the empire. Who are you?" Willet lifted his body to be on the same height as his tall opponent.
"What does that matter to a dead man?" The masked man answered.
Willet's red eyes dropped to a frightening chill. Did this Grade Six really declare his own death? His flames erupted along his shoulders and spiraled down to his arms like coiling snakes. He glared at the masked man and said, "Talking is useless now. You can die first."