The Fortress Princess stretched with a lazy little hum. "I thought this would be a holiday jaunt. Turns out I actually have to fight. Useless, the lot of you."
Musashi's fists tightened. The twin horned-dragon turrets on her rig glowed so hot they looked ready to melt, and the sea right under her feet boiled away, leaving a bowl-shaped hollow several meters across.
Steam billowed up like fog, wrapping her in a white shroud.
Even so, Musashi couldn't spit out the line "Fine, leave, I'll do it myself." She really couldn't beat the port—her confidence was shot.
That's how it is when you don't have the power. Predator and prey; the Abyss runs on it even harder than humans do.
The Airfield Princess and Fortress Princess had only meant to needle her a couple of times, but it felt great.
There are cliques within the Abyssals too. The Airfield Princess and Fortress Princess are both tied, historically, to the Western Hemisphere—the former to Germany's 10th Air Corps, the latter (Pachina) to the fortress at Cape Pachino in Sicily.
Musashi, of course, is an Eastern-hemisphere name.
Catching a chance to mock Musashi—and having her be unable to talk back—was sweeter than tormenting humans.
Seeing this spiral toward a blow-up, Flagship M cut in: "Did you see the jade lion at dawn?"
At that, both princesses sharpened up; the flippancy dropped from their faces.
"Looked like it came from the Central Union's eastern waters—a human power."
"Troublesome. Even I was shaken by that."
Hindenburg added, "Our analysis points to the Central Union's Fleet Admiral, Gorou. He burned life to throw that punch."
The Airfield Princess frowned. "What's happening out east? What forced the old man that far?"
"Ryuujou No. 3546, following a plan by Akagi & Kaga No. 541, intended to swallow the Central Union's Eastern Theater in one go—break their spine."
The Fortress Princess tapped her lip. "The Central Union props up the middle continent. Crippling them means the whole region is on the chopping block, and the corrupted mag-born will fight like rabid dogs… That kind of grand plan isn't something Akagi and Kaga come up with on their own."
Flagship M nodded. "Of course not. The order came from Main Base No. 3."
The Fortress Princess looked north, thinking. "In that case, it failed. If Akagi & Kaga's mass is gone, you won't pull a force that big together in the east for at least half a year."
"It didn't completely fail. No one expected Gorou to have that in reserve," Musashi said, cooling a little. "But Main Base No. 3 has placed an N-class flagship in command now—Type II, level 148."
"Then why are we worrying?" The Airfield Princess shook her head, glanced at the horned dragon-head turrets still warped on Musashi's rig, and—for once—didn't jab again. She pointed south instead. "What about the situation down there?"
The Fortress Princess covered her mouth with a laugh. "Clang, bang—very lively."
She wasn't wrong. Hundreds of thousands of Abyssal destroyers and several thousand submarines had formed concentric rings 100–500 nautical miles from Hikaru's port.
Thousands of small teams were launching torpedo attacks around the clock on the floating island that housed the port. To counter the subs and their torpedoes, even Lexington, Saratoga, and Taihou had stripped off their bomb loads for high-ASW torpedo bombers and dedicated ASW planes, plowing the ocean with carpet-bombing.
Their bombardment shook the air; the secondary detonations from triggered torpedoes ran to tens of thousands per minute. On land, the ground would have been chewed ten meters deep by now.
Thankfully, this is the sea. Nothing is softer than water—and nothing is harder to break when it decides to endure. Only the ocean can absorb a war this violent.
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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