The night sky burned crimson as the falling Junius Seven scraped against the atmosphere.
It looked like a black-and-red cake, and the sudden barrage of more than a hundred beams sliced through the airborne candle flames scattered across its surface.
In the next instant, those flames erupted with even greater brilliance.
For a moment, the entire night became brighter than day.
Among the thousands of warheads, several released light of almost unimaginable intensity, resembling miniature suns.
When such miniature suns appeared too close to the ocean, the water began to boil and evaporate. The sea itself churned violently, transforming the previously calm surface into raging waves within seconds.
The nearby fleet that had launched those warheads was immediately battered by the surging water.
Some warships lacked sufficient displacement and were simply overturned.
Others were not structurally strong enough. Their hulls groaned under the pounding waves, warping or even snapping apart.
Still others avoided capsizing or breaking in half, only for the tremendous impact to cause internal malfunctions that triggered sympathetic explosions in their ammunition magazines.
In short, those abnormally bright fireballs had left part of the fleet in complete ruin.
Before the glow of the countless explosions could fade, another black-and-red beam surged into the heavens.
That light of death, seemingly capable of devouring everything in its path, even swallowed the radiance of the countless "lamps" illuminating the ocean. What had been brighter than day suddenly became as gloomy as an overcast sky beneath heavy storm clouds.
Crack!
For a moment, everyone thought they heard something shatter.
They looked toward the source of the sound, the enormous object falling from the sky. The shield surrounding the nearly ten-kilometer-wide disc appeared to be on the verge of breaking.
Then it truly shattered.
Junius Seven itself had not actually been scraping against the atmosphere. Its defensive shield had been bearing the brunt of the friction.
Once the shield broke, the tremendous heat it had been holding back dispersed in an instant.
Next, Junius Seven itself would collide directly with the atmosphere.
However, before the atmosphere could slam into it, the destructive beam of death struck the landmass first. It drilled into the surface, vaporizing everything in its path until it finally burst out through the other side.
By the time the beam penetrated it completely, the once relatively flat disc had been twisted and deformed into something resembling a funnel.
Countless cracks radiated outward from the opening at the center.
In an instant, the nearly ten-kilometer-wide landmass disintegrated into tens of thousands of fragments.
The fragments varied greatly in size, with the largest still measuring three kilometers across. An object of that mass striking the planet would still cause destruction beyond imagination.
Everyone who witnessed the scene turned their attention toward the colossal warship, hoping it could fire again and destroy the three-kilometer fragment.
Unfortunately, the warship appeared incapable of launching a third shot. Something seemed to have malfunctioned aboard the vessel.
Its superweapon's firing system had apparently broken down.
If the largest fragment continued falling, it would not strike Orb directly, but it would land nearby. The resulting tsunami would inflict unimaginable devastation upon an island nation like Orb.
"Captain Murrue...!"
Someone aboard the Archangel could no longer remain silent. The meaning was obvious. Shouldn't they begin intercepting the fragments?
Even if they could not destroy every piece, they could intercept as many as possible and minimize the damage.
"Wait!"
Murrue once again restrained her anxious crew.
The Orb Navy officers currently connected to them appeared unable to wait any longer after seeing that she still had not ordered an interception. They seemed ready to issue their own commands.
Just then, launcher cells began opening across the surface of the warship from the parallel world, making it resemble an enormous arsenal ship.
Even sections of the deck that had shown no visible launch systems opened to reveal hidden compartments.
In the next instant, missiles streaked into the sky, each trailing crimson light.
The missiles were exceptionally fast, and the radiance streaming behind them was unlike any conventional engine flare.
Ordinary missiles left brilliant flames from their engines. These, however, appeared to be venting pure light, with glowing particles scattering through their trails.
More than a hundred such warheads ascended in an instant, painting a spectacular display across the sky.
At the same time, every large and small gun barrel aboard the heavy cruiser turned upward.
Orange light flashed.
Instead of physical shells, more than a dozen high-energy beams blasted into the heavens.
The three-kilometer-wide fragment was struck by the beams and broke apart even further.
Based on the distance and the extent of the destruction, they could roughly estimate the lasers' power. Each beam was already more powerful than the Archangel's primary Gottfried high-energy beam cannons.
The Gottfried was among the most advanced capital-ship beam cannons currently in existence. At this distance, it could certainly hit a three-kilometer fragment, but it could never inflict damage on this scale.
Its destructive power would probably be no more than one-third that of the heavy cruiser's beams.
Yet weapons of this caliber appeared to be nothing more than the vessel's conventional firepower.
Then what about the warheads rapidly approaching the countless fragments?
The first wave was almost there!
Three... two... one!
Impact!
In an instant, black-hole-like spheres appeared throughout the sky, swallowing the fragments of Junius Seven they struck.
Rather than producing physical explosions that shattered the debris further, they devoured it.
Since the countless fragments were falling under Earth's gravitational pull, the black spheres did not disappear immediately. They continued swallowing every piece of debris that dropped into them.
The fragments that entered did not emerge from the other side. They seemed to have truly been consumed by black holes.
The spheres resembled gateways to hell torn open in the sky, and the sight sent chills crawling across everyone's scalp.
Several seconds later, the dimly glowing, black-hole-like spheres faded away, revealing nothing but empty air.
Every fragment they had consumed had vanished without a trace, as though completely vaporized.
A white beam suddenly shot into the heavens, distinctly different from the earlier crimson rays.
The mobile weapon that had intercepted the Earth Alliance surface fleet's missiles had allowed its densely packed laser emitters to cool briefly before opening fire again.
This time, it did not unleash hundreds of hair-thin beams. Instead, their fire converged into one colossal beam that pierced the sky.
It resembled an enormous beam sword, slicing apart several remaining fragments that were nearly a kilometer across.
The second wave of all-consuming warheads was already climbing into the sky, devouring the newly divided debris.
When the third wave ascended and swallowed the last remaining fragments, true darkness reclaimed the sky that had previously burned crimson.
Only a handful of sparks remained, like embers from a wood fire swept upward by a sudden gust of wind. They were far too small to pose any threat.
The object that had once measured nearly ten kilometers across had almost completely vanished.
That also meant that if those warheads were ever fired at the planet's surface, they could erase an area containing just as much mass.
(End of Chapter)
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