The immediate aftermath of the successful, surgical sabotage of Duke Wilmar's castle sent a clear, terrifying message across the Zanzeer Kingdom and the wider Kingdom Alliance. Pro-Consul Maximilian had not waited for their reply to his ultimatum; he had simply executed the consequences of their defiance. The airship carrying Ambassador Theron and the DEA team had barely cleared the capital's airspace before the Faceless Men completed their grim work, turning Wilmar's immense, ancient keep—the very symbol of feudal security—into a catastrophic sinkhole of shattered stone and smoke.
This was not war by attrition; it was war by psychological annihilation and scientific precision. The destruction proved that their strong castles and their pride in magic shields were utterly irrelevant when faced with Scorpian ingenuity. The Faceless Men had placed a specialized charge deep within the central keep's main sewer line, a confined, humid space that maximized the weapon's synergistic effects. The charge, a calculated blend of magnesium, napalm, and liquid nitrogen, was a nightmare of thermal dynamics. The instantaneous detonation unleashed the white-hot, sustained inferno of the magnesium and napalm, immediately followed by the extreme cryogenic stress induced by the rapid vaporization of the liquid nitrogen. The violent juxtaposition of near-absolute zero temperature and raging heat caused the ancient foundation stones and mortar—already structurally compromised by centuries of slow wear—to suffer thermo-cryogenic shock. The stone instantly became brittle from the cold, and the sudden expansion from the heat caused a catastrophic, immediate internal fracture. The resulting kinetic force of the napalm explosion, trapped and magnified by the confined space of the sewer, had nowhere to go but up, turning the foundation into dust and driving the entire central tower of the castle into the earth.
The physical effect was spectacular and final. The keep did not crumble or burn slowly; it simply disappeared, collapsing in on itself in a cloud of pulverized stone and mortar. The vaunted magical shields, designed only to deflect external kinetic or arcane blasts, offered absolutely no defense against the application of subterranean physics. Duke Wilmar, along with dozens of his retainers and family, was instantly entombed beneath the rubble of his greatest security. The entire event lasted less than five seconds.
The immediate political effect was exactly what Maximilian had intended: instant, widespread panic and the total dismantling of the Zanzeer Kingdom's confidence. The message that resonated across the continent was chillingly clear: Scorpia would not waste resources on a siege; Max could kill the powerful in their beds by destroying the very foundations of their sovereignty without firing a single V-2 or engaging a single Fighter Jet. King Zanzeer found his palace rapidly emptied as Dukes and Lords fled back to their own holdings, suddenly desperate to inspect their own, equally vulnerable sewer systems and foundations. The unified front collapsed instantly, the political will of the new kingdom dissolving into paranoid, individual terror.
The social effect was equally devastating. The civilian populace, witnessing the sudden, total obliteration of the most powerful man in the region by an unknown, unseen force, transferred their fear from their own volatile overlords to the inscrutable, terrifying precision of Scorpian power. The local people now saw the nobility as utterly incapable of protecting them or even protecting themselves, cementing the notion that Order, however ruthless, was the only reliable form of security. Whispers of resistance were replaced by a desperate, palpable desire for Scorpian occupation, as that at least offered reliable walls and guaranteed food.
Furthermore, the destruction of Wilmar's keep functionally terminated the Kingdom Alliance. The remaining twenty-one members immediately called emergency sessions. The mutual defense pact was predicated on the assumption that Max would attack conventional targets with conventional methods. The prospect of facing a superior enemy who could destroy a citadel from beneath, without warning and with total impunity, was a risk none of the other kingdoms were willing to take. The threat of mobilizing twenty-two armies against Scorpia evaporated overnight, replaced by a desperate scramble for unilateral survival and the immediate, frantic severing of ties to the newly toxic Zanzeer Kingdom.
Ambassador Theron, safely back aboard the airship, radioed the confirmation to Max: "Pro-Consul, the target is neutralized. The Zanzeer government has ceased to function. We are observing mass panic among the remaining Dukes. The ultimatum is now redundant; they are broken."
Max, reviewing the satellite imagery of the massive hole where Wilmar's keep once stood, smiled a rare, thin smile of pure satisfaction. The kinetic strike was executed by two men and one explosive charge, yet it achieved the political end-state of a ten-division invasion. This was the ultimate efficiency.
The Zanzeer Kingdom was now politically shattered, militarily paralyzed, and ripe for the final stage of absorption. Max had no intention of wasting time or resources on a full military occupation when the political resistance had already evaporated. The next move had to be equally surgical, designed to secure assets and administrative control without incurring any cost.