Emperor Alaric was not sleeping. In the war room of the Imperial Palace, the vast map of the Everwinter Empire—usually a tranquil display of orderly, colored provinces—now looked like a cracked mosaic. The blue of Imperial loyalty was rapidly being consumed by the angry red of King Collin's Southern Dominion and the terrifying, black and red smudge that represented Valum. His attention was split, his resources hemorrhaging, and his strategic genius paralyzed by the need to fight two fundamentally different kinds of war: a conventional, bloody civil war in the South, and a cold war of espionage and uncertainty against Maximilian's technological terror in the West. He paced the length of the hall, the weight of his failing empire pressing down on his shoulders like a lead mantle. The air was thick with the burnt tallow of countless candles and the stale scent of desperation.
General Marcus, the chief tactician, stood before the map, his face drawn and slick with sweat despite the palace's chill. "Majesty, the situation in the South is stabilized, but barely. We defeated King Collin at Cynos Crossing, but his forces are fluid and numerous. Our legions are tied down in siege and counter-siege operations, losing us valuable manpower and resources daily. The reports of the new trade agreement between Dunbar and Scorpia confirm our worst fears: the bastard is leveraging the civil war. He's selling them his obsolete scrap—those simple steam engines—to make them dependent on his industry, subtly expanding his economic grip while we fight his wars." The General tapped a stylus against the marker for Fort Astra, a vital supply anchor. "We cannot afford a prolonged engagement, and we cannot afford any disruption to our logistics in the South. Fort Astra is our single most important base; it is our anvil. We need it to hold fast while we hammer Dunbar into submission. Any instability there—"
Before General Marcus could finish his anxious assessment, a junior officer, usually a paragon of military discipline, burst through the doors. His face was ash-gray, and his usual rigid bearing was shattered by barely contained panic. He held a scroll wrapped in an Imperial cipher, its wax seal half-broken and trembling in his hand. "Majesty! Urgent transmission, directly verified from the Scrying Corps detachment near the former Western Duchy. Their reports... they defy interpretation, and the Mages are in distress."
Grand Magister Theron, standing rigidly by the throne, his silver-threaded robes perfectly aligned, immediately moved forward, his expression of superior magical knowledge mixing with growing concern. "The Scrying Mages have been under immense strain due to the residual chaotic mana emanating from Valum, Majesty. They are prone to delusion, perceiving noise as form. This is likely an error."
"This is no delusion, Magister," the officer stammered, his eyes wide with fear, handing the scroll to Alaric. "The message is repeated and verified by no less than three independent Scrying Mages operating miles apart, each confirming the coordinates and the description. They report... four massive, unidentifiable objects moving at immense speed outside their normal scanning range. They are not birds, not dragons, not conventional airships. The mana signature is weak, intermittent, and chaotic, almost suppressed." The young officer visibly shuddered.
Alaric's eyes, sharp and cold, scanned the rough sketches provided by the Mages. The objects were described as "silent, dark, metallic shadows, moving without sails or visible elemental propulsion, leaving a faint, unnatural trail of condensation against the night sky." The Mages had tracked their course in a wide, sweeping arc—first west, then sharply south, now heading with unnerving speed directly toward the single largest concentration of Imperial troops in the Empire: the Fort Astra Garrison.
General Marcus finally found his voice, a choked, ragged whisper. "They're avoiding the central quarantine. They're going around the perimeter... towards Astra. Why Astra? That is a purely defensive garrison; it is filled with logistical support and troops only meant to face Dunbar! It poses no threat to Valum's wall!" The sheer illogic of the target paralyzed the tactician.
Magister Theron, his academic arrogance finally completely eclipsed by genuine, stomach-turning terror, seized the scroll from the Emperor. He muttered incantations, attempting to cross-verify the scrying reports with his own limited range. "The signature... the Mages describe an internal, sustained, rhythmic pressure wave within the ships. A conventional vessel should not sustain that much internal force unless it is about to rupture! And the chaotic mana trail—it is not elemental; it's a residual discharge from some form of intensely localized, high-draw containment mechanism. Majesty," Theron concluded, his voice a strained rasp, "this is not an attack with an army. This is the delivery of the forbidden alchemy itself. They are carrying the source of their terror."
The realization hit the war council like a physical, suffocating blow. Maximilian wasn't challenging the garrison's soldiers in a skirmish; he was challenging their very existence. He was trading one attack for two hundred and fifty thousand lives, confirming the barbarity of the trade agreement.
Alaric slammed his fist down onto the mahogany table, the sound echoing in the sudden, absolute silence. "Four ships. Four deliveries. And Fort Astra is the target of their alliance with Dunbar. They intend to obliterate it to legitimize King Collin! Marcus, issue an immediate general alert to Astra! Move the most vulnerable assets—the supply depots and the non-combatant personnel—into the deepest eastern bunkers! Theron, get every available Wind Mage and Clairvoyant on the highest towers. We need to identify these ships and disrupt their flight path. Focus the entire Imperial magical defense on those four points!"
Fort Astra: The Calm Before Annihilation ⏳
Meanwhile, at Fort Astra, two hundred and fifty thousand Imperial soldiers, along with their associated families and support staff, went about their business in a state of oblivious, weary military routine. Fort Astra was less a traditional fortress and more a sprawling, massive military city, constructed across a wide, flat valley—a critical logistical hub filled with expansive weapons depots, endless rows of barracks, noisy mess halls, dust-choked training fields, and the critical Southern Command Communication Center.
General Vorlag, the Garrison commander, was annoyed, not alarmed. He was a creature of habit, an old-school commander who believed implicitly in the solidity of stone and the sharpness of steel. He received the Emperor's cryptic dispatch—High Alert. Unidentified hostile targets approaching. Prepare for airborne attack—with deep skepticism and resentment. He was fighting King Collin's primitive muskets and crossbows; the idea of a sophisticated, high-speed airborne assault was ludicrous. He assumed the nervous Scrying Mages in the north had finally cracked under the pressure of the 'sorcerer' Max, inventing ghosts in the night.
Vorlag ordered his standard, minimal security procedure: move the garrison's five largest Anti-Air Ballistae to the northern ramparts and assign a rotation of Wind Mages to monitor the upper air currents for any sign of a Southern surprise attack. He did not order a full alert or an evacuation. Why risk chaos and expose his critical supply lines and his men to unnecessary anxiety over the paranoia of the distant Capital? He went back to reviewing his supply manifests.
The soldiers went to bed thinking about the next day's drill. The cooks prepared rations in the central mess halls. The Earth Mages finished reinforcing the south wall against a potential push from Dunbar's army. No one looked up. No one anticipated a threat that traveled above the war, not through it. Their world was entirely terrestrial.
The Unbearable Weight of the Air Force
High above the unsuspecting garrison, inside the command gondola of The Raptor, Captain Elara (the former Imperial airship pilot) gripped the controls, her knuckles white against the metal. The air was frigid, the cabin tense and smelling faintly of ozone and burning charcoal from the coolers. Her crew, a focused mix of Valum engineers and low-level mages trained in operating the Honeycomb Mana Shield, sat in silence, their eyes fixed on their meters. Their primary challenge was not yet external, but internal: the MSW-1, humming faintly and dangerously in its shock-dampened cradle below.
"Pressure readings on Canister Three, Engineer," Elara ordered, her voice a clipped, emotionless monotone.
"Fluctuating, Captain. The boil-off rate is increasing, two degrees past Max's safety parameter," replied the engineer, his eyes wide and fixed on the brass pressure gauge. "The coolers are maxed, and the mana stabilizers are flickering. We need to drop the load soon, or the containment mana will fail catastrophically."
The faint, constant whirr of the Honeycomb Mana Shield generator was their only comfort, a subtle, rhythmic sound that provided a continuous, auditory reminder of Max's protective genius, a magical defense powered by his science, guarding them from the predictable magical world below.
Suddenly, the encrypted radio receiver burst to life with a rapid, complex string of numbers—the final strike coordinates from Max's distant, sterile command center.
"Coordinates received!" the navigator barked, his voice straining with the urgency. "Adjusting flight path: Dead-center on the Command Center, Mess Hall One, the Main Barracks, and the Munitions Depot. They are not dispersed, Captain. They are clustered. We have optimal targets. Zero Hour is in T minus three minutes."
The pilot of The Raptor checked his chronometer, his mind racing to execute the final steps of a plan that felt utterly detached from reality. Below them lay the unaware Fort Astra, a sprawling city of lights and life. They knew that in precisely one hundred and eighty seconds, that city and those lives would cease to exist. They were the executioners of a new, industrialized age of warfare, and the weight of two hundred and fifty thousand souls, about to be delivered with cold, mechanical precision, sat heavily on their souls. They were not fighting for honor; they were fighting for Valum's survival, and the price was absolute annihilation.
Captain Elara inhaled sharply, the cryogenic cold of the cabin reaching her core. She flipped the final deployment safety switches, preparing the bomb bay systems. "Shields on high draw. Stabilize the MSW-1. We have passed the point of no return. Prepare for payload drop in T minus sixty seconds."
Back in the Imperial War Room, the Clairvoyant Mages on the highest tower screamed, their mental shields overloading. They had finally locked eyes on the four ships, and the vision was one of absolute, undeniable, cold annihilation.
"Majesty! They are over the Fort! They are preparing to drop a payload!" Magister Theron shrieked, clutching his chest, his voice filled with the terror of a world collapsing. "It's not fire, it's not steel—it's nothing! They are dropping nothing! No projectile, no elemental spell! It's an internal release!"
Alaric stood utterly frozen, his vast power completely useless against the unseen threat. He knew this was the end of the line, the moment the world shifted. He looked at General Marcus, his face a mask of defeat and shock. The Empire had feared the technology, but it was the ruthless logic of its use—the cold, efficient strike against the soft underbelly, aimed not at winning a battle but at breaking the will—that had destroyed them. "May the gods have mercy," the Emperor whispered, knowing his plea was already too late