Chapter 70
Iron Port, the East's largest naval port, had originally been a bustling harbor.
Armies consumed vast quantities of supplies. The countless people who flocked there to meet that demand naturally built towns around Iron Port.
No matter how difficult things became, the area around the naval port was always lively... but not anymore.
Desolate streets stretched beneath a gloomy, ash-gray sky.
The cranes that had stopped moving at the harbor stretched their skeletal wooden arms toward the sky. No lights shone from the windows of the residential district, and abandoned newspapers rolled across the square, scraping along the ground.
In the silent city, the only thing still moving was the clock in the middle of the square.
A barrage of fire rained down upon Iron Port and the nearby towns, which looked as though every human being had vanished from them.
A 305mm shell that landed in the middle of the residential district engulfed several houses in flames.
The market street, once lively with merchants calling out to customers, was buried beneath a barrage of 152mm shells, while 76mm shells rained down over the masts of the sailing ships sitting quietly at anchor.
Red lights rose one after another between the streets. When an entire block was swallowed by dust, the second salvo struck beyond it.
Roofs collapsed, and bricks flew in every direction. Fragments of indistinguishable colors scattered into the sky like tiny dots.
A gigantic, muddy column of water shot up in the middle of the pier. Small vessels at anchor were shoved aside by the blast, while the broadsides of the third-rate ships of the line were torn apart like paper.
Edward watched it all, unable even to think of lowering his raised hands.
The grand ducal residence's elevated grounds and enormous windows offered the perfect vantage point for watching the destruction unfold before his eyes.
"Ha, haha..."
- Rumble!
As Edward listened to the thunderous sound that made it seem as though the world itself were collapsing, his heart felt as if it might collapse as well.
Iron Port, the Eastern naval harbor with a thousand years of history, was being destroyed.
"Was I... wrong?"
Perhaps it was because of the distance between Iron Port and the grand ducal residence. The explosions rising throughout the city seemed strangely unreal.
Viewed from afar, the city looked like a burning model. The flames flickered small and quietly, while smoke rose into the sky like black threads.
Only the explosions that occasionally sent flames higher than a cathedral spire managed to make the scene feel real to Edward.
The direction in which the flames rose slowly changed, following the direction of the naval guns. The bombardment shifted from the eastern side of the harbor toward the west.
It felt as though an invisible hand were erasing the city one district at a time.
The East's largest naval port was utterly incapable of offering any resistance.
The great ships of the line that had once cleaved the sea with such grandeur, the coastal guns lined along the shoreline, and the spires prepared for the mages had all fallen silent.
Edward stared at the scene and muttered blankly.
"The South—the Southern bastards... They were afraid of intervention from the Center, so they could never fire their naval guns. And the Center, the Center...?"
He gazed out the window and muttered helplessly, like a man whose every belief had been denied.
Not a single part of his calculations had been correct.
The South, which had spent all this time watching the Center's actions and somehow trying to turn the justification in its own favor, the South that had always been mindful of public opinion, had done this?
And what about the Center?
Was the Center not afraid of the South blockading the port? With the port already occupied, the Center would have to bow and yield if it wanted to reopen negotiations, wouldn't it?
Crown Prince Theodore was absolutely not the sort of man who would bow and yield to someone else, was he?
Amid the whirlwind of thoughts, he finally arrived at one answer.
"...No way. No way."
There was only one possibility that made everything fit.
The central government might have reached an agreement with the South without him.
Then it made sense. The Center had already secured its own interests, so it no longer needed to intervene recklessly, while the South, having finished its discussions with the Center, was firing its naval guns without a care.
"No, that can't be."
But for that to be possible, one premise was necessary.
The central government had to be so utterly incompetent that it lacked the ability to stop the Southern bastards, who had already advanced right before its eyes.
"Even so, the Center couldn't possibly be..."
Edward continued those thoughts with a vacant expression before sinking heavily to the floor.
To be honest, it did not feel real.
The position of Eastern Grand Duke had been Edward's rightful inheritance since childhood. As the only firstborn son of the Eastern Grand Ducal House, he had seized power in the East without a single complication.
He had deliberately propped up the commercial and industrial guilds. It did not matter whether the people groaned; he needed to nurture the new nobles.
That was how he had drawn the balance of power that had been maintained until then toward his own side.
He had built a fortress of power that no one could challenge, all so he could spend his life with Aria.
"Was the castle I built so painstakingly really going to collapse this pointlessly?"
Rumble-
With a heavy boom, the ground beneath Iron Port's outer wall collapsed. As the cliff gave way, the thousand years of history built atop it disappeared.
Edward, who had spent his entire life believing himself a victor, a special man unlike all the others, could not endure it.
Edward began to lose his grip on his sanity.
That was when a commotion arose from the lower floors.
"The bombardment has begun! Where on earth is Edward, and what is he doing that he isn't responding at all?!"
"Beg the South to spare us, even now! Do you still refuse to admit that the Imperial Center has abandoned us?!"
"Do you intend to erase our city, steeped in a thousand years of Eastern history, from the map?!"
The great nobles who had persistently obstructed Edward. Useless men who had stuffed their coffers while doing nothing but hindering the growth of the new nobles and the commercial and industrial factions.
They had blocked his path all this time, and now they had come to bring him down entirely. Today, they looked more loathsome than ever.
Perhaps it was because he had nothing left to lose.
"Shut up."
Boom-!
A huge sword made of water pierced through a noble's head.
The noble and the mages he had brought as escorts hurriedly began casting spells.
Edward, who had squeezed the people dry to build his power, and the great nobles, who had stood by while every problem unfolded and only reacted after the fact.
The two groups, each living only for their own interests within the framework of the East, could not become one even when the East faced destruction.
After all, groups formed for the sake of profit were just as easy to tear apart.
"E-Edward! How dare you kill a noble of a family that has worked for the East for a thousand years!"
"Hmm... You call it working for a thousand years when you sat idle all that time, then busied yourselves denouncing the Eastern Grand Duke the moment trouble arose?"
"At least we never gambled with the East, a land with a thousand-year history, like you did!"
With the city collapsing behind them, Edward and the great nobles remained too busy fighting each other to the very end.
The result was devastating.
No matter how powerful the Imperial nobles' mages were, they could not defeat Edward, a 9th-tier mage.
In the places left behind by his magic, thickly shrouded in water mist, nothing remained but the corpses of the nobles and their escort soldiers.
"Kuh... you, you're mad... The Imperial Family will never let you get away with this..."
One of the fallen nobles trembled weakly on the floor.
One of the Empire's sacred Seventeen Families. Was he an elder of the Rosenfeld family?
It felt good to see the man who had usually been so hell-bent on blocking Edward's path crawling helplessly across the floor.
"Yes, this will do."
Edward killed the trembling man with an impassive gaze.
Crushing someone he disliked through sheer force. It was something he would never normally have done. That was the sort of thing only the Western Grand Duke, whom he regarded so contemptuously, would do.
But it no longer mattered.
"The Empire has abandoned me. I have no reason to die with the East."
Edward had not yet lost everything. Although the navy that had endured for a thousand years had been sunk beneath the sea, and the naval port famed for its history and tradition had been destroyed, he still had something left.
Aria.
The love that was all he had left.
She would never abandon him.
"We're returning to the Imperial Center. We'll take Aria and leave. While those stupid, barbaric men beat each other bloody, we'll live quietly somewhere peaceful."
That meant he had not lost yet.
The Empire? The Eastern Grand Ducal House? He could abandon them all; it did not matter. When had he ever thought about the people in the first place?
Having watched a thousand years of Eastern history disappear before his eyes, he had to think that way just to endure it.
"Kuh..."
Of course, he was hardly in perfect condition himself.
The escort mages serving the great noble families, whose lineages stretched back a thousand years, were quite strong. The nobles had not stepped before a 9th-tier mage without giving the matter any thought.
Against several 7th-tier mages and one 8th-tier mage, Edward had still been forced to fight while suffering considerable injuries.
So he slowly moved forward, clutching the wound at his waist.
No, he tried to move forward.
"...?"
It was only when red eyes flashed beyond the dense water mist.
By the time he realized that something was wrong, it was already far too late.
The water mist was torn open, revealing the heavily armored infantry of the personal guard waiting beyond it.
And in their midst stood a man.
He wore a neat uniform, had blue eyes, and even golden hair.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
The man Edward least wanted to see right now—Kyle Leopold—had appeared before his eyes.