Crash!
The sky is falling apart.
When you look up, darkness swirls, thicker than pitch black. If someone brings light to that darkness, it shimmers like the waves of a night sea.
But while water in nature falls down, right now, water is being pulled up from all directions into the sky.
And then it spreads out, covering the heavens.
The mountains to the east are half-submerged in an orange twilight glow. In contrast, the sea to the west shows black sludge. As the sea water is pulled skyward, the bottom keeps emerging.
However, it looks like the entrance to hell from a myth, so no one even considers approaching that direction.
Looking elsewhere…
To the north, there’s the sea; to the south, a massive river blocks the way.
However, the river no longer exists, so if one runs hard, they could reach Bern City. But thanks to the water blocking all light from above, it looks like nothing but sheer darkness, essentially creating a barrier.
The common sense that a river should flow stops them. It’s already late evening. In a situation where the faint light of the sky is blocked by the sea, who would dare to cross?
There’s nowhere to run.
And slowly, the surface descends from the sky to the ground.
Everyone watches in a daze.
Fighting feels pointless now.
The soldiers here and the citizens who resisted all lift their heads to gaze at the water’s surface.
Someone, thinking they could swim, mistakenly believes that if the water slowly comes down, they could escape.
But once they see the highest spire plunge into the water, making a crunch sound and crumpling, that thought is quickly abandoned.
Crush.
It’s not just water floating about.
Very few understand what that is. But everyone clearly realizes there’s no place left to escape. They only grasp that touching that water means death.
There’s nothing particularly magical, and the world is eerily quiet. There’s no magic, and the air is suffocatingly still and dry.
That’s why they don’t know who’s to blame.
Well, no one believes people are capable of such deeds in the first place.
So maybe if they handle whoever’s making this happen, they might survive. But reaching that conclusion seems impossible.
So what do people do?
Zap!
Suddenly, a ray of light bursts from the ground toward the water, melting the ground!
They don’t know why the water is floating, but if it’s just water, they can evaporate it, right? With that thought, they attack the visible target.
Simple and intuitive.
But water is heavier than it seems and can store immense heat.
The ray vanishes shortly after.
And if it has the power to turn steam back into liquid, the damage from the heat is virtually invisible. The rippling surface quickly returns to normal as though nothing had happened.
No, it doesn’t end there.
Boom!
Like the surface consisted of countless blocks, a wall falls from above, pressing down vertically where the light had shone.
In an instant, Craft Nine, the pinnacle of magical science located there, is crushed under the mass and disappears.
A small port away from Bern City.
Right now, the people in this village refuse to believe what’s happening is real.
But even denying reality, the water that blankets the sky doesn’t disappear.
It gradually descends like someone placing wet tissue over their respirator. Or perhaps the ground is sinking.
Realizing it could lead to their demise, people begin to frantically attack the sky in panic. Afraid, seeing others do it, thinking that if they strike that water, they might survive.
Magic and objects fly from everywhere.
Light, heat, fire, ice, rock, steel, arrows, bullets, bricks—every conceivable attack shoots upwards.
People unleash their magic desperately to escape the brink of death.
But like a drop of oil fails to alter the ocean’s surface, the magic splashes down and dissolves back into darkness as though nothing had existed.
Having briefly brightened the surroundings, when all magic ceases, that darkness looks even darker.
With that darkness come despair and fear that creep into hearts.
In many societies, rivers symbolize death. Thus, floods have cruelly taken lives over the ages.
Those looking up at the sky plunge into despair.
And that despair shatters their spirits.
They say dumb people reveal their true nature in extreme situations, but all that emerges in such dire moments are the shattered remnants of broken minds.
Smashing a small glass bottle with a hammer and claiming it’s its original state is either the behavior of an idiot or an artist.
There are those praying mindlessly into thin air and others shifting blame onto those around them for this situation. Some create makeshift tools to escape while others simply resign and sit down, waiting for death.
A mix of everything.
Most stand, clinging to their shattered sanity. Even if blood flows from their hands in despair, if they let go, they’d just go on a rampage.
Squeak!
The surface rises beyond the second floor. Now, buildings are uprooted and drawn toward the surface by the water’s pull.
Panic spreads as more and more people succumb to hysteria. All the architectural structures they depended on are pulled to the heavens, crumpling under the pressure, leaving the sky dreadfully low.
The heavens are filled with a sea of death that will claim those who touch it.
A fear akin to claustrophobia spreads, and those unable to bear the wait for death destroy themselves by jumping into the sea.
Dying is absurdly simple.
Just a leap, and one’s head dives into the water, instantly bursting due to pressure and dying on the spot. And that pressure doesn’t stop there; it pulls the body upwards.
Like a ship about to sink, the village gradually descends.
And in the heart of that village stands a girl with a shattered spirit.
Victoria Bet.
No matter how much rage filled her, if she couldn’t think clearly here, she would’ve already perished at Dae-gon’s forward base.
She calmly considers this and realizes it’s necessary.
She recounts everything that’s happened to Polaris.
Having traveled by airship, they were attacked by a mechanical puppet that killed people and even shot down the airship with a powerful weapon.
Furthermore, she learned that those trying to enter Bern City protest at this port.
Just a moment ago, she saw soldiers shooting the protestors.
So she reasoned clearly: securing this place is the first priority.
Then, she must find out what’s happening in Bern City and ultimately return home to her family. She firmly established her priorities.
As the water rises just above Victoria’s head, she stops it.
She’s of average height among girls, but small compared to adult men.
In other words, keeping the water down like this makes it inconvenient for the enemy to act.
Satisfied that she has assured some safety, Victoria heads towards the area where the protestors were.
The barbed wire is broken, and several soldiers are seen trembling, holding their heads. Some have even impaled themselves with their own weapons, while others pray with their eyes closed, shaking.
Victoria checks the line drawn by the soldiers and lowers the water.
The defensive line disappears into the water. Every object submerged contracts and shatters in an instant.
After flushing people down like toilet water, Victoria strides forward.
At this point, it’s too late to be surprised or saddened by the dead; her anger has reached its peak.
Instead, she lowers column of water around the buildings, building walls to trap anyone from fleeing.
As she enters, if there are people inside, she drops the water columns on them. Most objects under that water column cannot withstand the pressure and crumble to pieces.
Simple tasks, yet she massacres low-ranking soldiers while entering buildings stripped to the second floor.
Once inside, Victoria looks up to see the ceiling still intact. This could leave openings during an attack, so she lowers the water slightly to break the second floor, which is also the ceiling of the first.
Then, screams flow from within.
Instead of rushing towards the sound, Victoria cautiously scans the interior from the entrance. She can instantly turn every person present into cell fragments, but she carefully searches each nearby room, one by one.
Most rooms show scattered papers and worn-out weapons strewn about.
She flicks through the papers, inspecting the weapons to grasp their operation.
After searching the vicinity carefully, she proceeds deeper inside.
Quietly pressing against the wall, she nudges a large door inward.
“Ugh, Aaaaah! Protect me!”
Somebody screams loudly, and she hears a mix of commotion and footsteps from inside. Victoria edges back, widening the distance from the hall.
Taking a breath in preparation to block the entrance with a column of water, she quickly seals the doorway as a soldier bursts out.
Realizing he’s alone, the soldier recognizes he’s trapped yet has nowhere to retreat.
So he raises a weapon built from a device converting magic into kinetic energy, aiming all around.
Then he spots a girl crouched, peering at him.
Did she come to ask for help in this situation? The soldier thinks, lowering his weapon slowly.
He misjudged the situation.
The price of that mistake crashed upon him.
Thin streams of water snake down from all sides, encircling the soldier like a snake. It wasn’t being pulled by pressure this time; his face was submerged in a mass of water, leaving him unable to scream as he’s dragged into the air.
Fighting it for a while, oxygen depleted, he slumps. But the water fills his throat, flooding his lungs.
Only then does Victoria lower him to the ground and search his body. She checks the weapon he was using and examines the protective gear he wears while piercing through the streams surrounding him.
Then she retrieves an identifiable object and frowns. Combining the information found among the scattered papers with the identity of a soldier from a marquis family outlines a clear target.
“Gaston Marquis? The mayor of Bern City who caused all this?”
Her target is established.
Victoria strides straight into the room.
“Y-you, girl?”
Two men in guard uniforms, one woman, and the man holding the shining sword crouch, appearing miserable despite his originally big frame and masculine face.
“Gaston Marquis, did you blockade Bern City?”
“You know who I am, and you dare to speak to me like that—”
Negotiations should assert authority.
And recalling Beatrice’s words about making light threats if necessary, Victoria draws a square water column from the spot where the soldier stood.
Before he could even scream, the soldier is swallowed into the water column, crushing him into oblivion in front of everyone’s eyes.
“I’ll ask again. Gaston. You have only two refusals left.”
Victoria says this while looking at the remaining man and woman.
She remembers Beatrice’s teaching that negotiating by disabling limbs and pressing the head into the mud is the safest approach and so she does just that, calling it negotiation.
Of course, Beatrice meant to negotiate using undeniable interests or vulnerabilities, but as someone more inclined toward science than language like her father, Victoria took it literally.
This is less negotiation and more intimidation.
“Tell me why you blockaded Bern City.”
It’s certain she has created a reason for those present to respond.
