Chapter 36 — End Of An Empire

Eldriel, the capital and last city of the Elsass Empire.

Grand Admiral Erwin stood in the command room of the re-grouped First Fleet of the Third Reich. For the first time in a month, the battleships who had been travelling separately, occupying and wiping out resistance across the Elsass Empire have come together to end the war, to take down the last city of resistance.

Morale reached its peak as people all across the country rejoiced. They remembered that mere months ago, the Elsass Empire seemed to be so powerful and invincible. Now, the situation had completely flipped. As soldiers gazed at the city sitting in the distance, they were filled with complicated feelings. This was the reason they were fighting, what they had worked so hard for. But now it was about to be over, what was next? What did the future hold?

The great First Fleet flew in loose formation, their engines leaving gigantic trails of smoke across the air.

The once heroic and glorious city of Eldriel was now only a shadow of its former self, its streets bare and empty. There weren't even any wounded; of all the soldiers sent out through the duration of the war, none had returned.

Spotters looked through magically enhanced telescopes to assess the situation.

On the city walls, only the most die-hard loyalists were left resisting, the rest were hiding in their homes, only daring to peek out. There were no more large armies massed outside, expecting a fair fight. That era was already over. No matter how unwilling the emperor was, he was forced to accept that fighting like that was suicidal and did nothing but provide an easy target for the cannons of the battleships.

[Fire.]

With a single volley, the towering city walls which had held strong for hundreds of years were flattened. Stones weighing hundreds of tons were flung far away as the city was stripped bare.

The guns of the Fleet fell silent as Erwin ordered an advance. Slowly, the Bismarck led the advance of the fleet.

Erwin wanted to preserve most of the city and not cause unnecessary destruction. After all, it would be a great propaganda piece.

Despite being certain of their victory, they advanced cautiously. The attack of the Spectre Knights was still fresh in their minds, and they did not know what other measures the Elsass Empire might pull out in its dying breath.

Spotters constantly swept back and forth through the city, trying to spot anything out of place. The guns of the entire Fleet were loaded and ready to fire at a moment's notice.

In the core of the Bismarck, a large arcane object hung from chains. It was covered with magic crystals with countless pipes pumping liquids into it. A pen scribbled frantically on a piece of paper, drawing a jagged line. Numerous mages in dark robes were busy around it, constantly calibrating and adjusting it. A leading mage stood in front of a crude and simple display.

This was the latest technology of the Imperial Magical Academy, recently shipped straight to the front lines. Spearheaded by an incredibly talented student, their goal was to develop a machine that could detect magic fluctuations. Built on the foundation of existing detection spells and enhanced with technology, this prototype was formed. While it was big, bulky and practically immobile, it was incredibly effective at its job.

The lead mage watched the complex mess of dials, lights and graphs.

[Legendary magic fluctuations detected 12 degrees 200 metres!]

The message was quickly spread through the rest of the ship through communication crystals. Within seconds, a gun turned and fired, razing a house to the ground.

A powerful wizard was instantly evaporated, not even having the chance to cast the magic he had been building up.

With this technology, a weakness of the battleships of the Third Reich was solved. No longer could they only react to attacks after they had happened, they could now strike pre-emptively with pinpoint accuracy.

However, the next moment thunderous roars sounded as artillery hidden all across the city fired. Their explosive shells impacted the steel hulls of the ships, blasting off pieces of armour and leaving dents. Now revealed, they were quickly spotted by the fleet.

[Hey… Isn't that our own artillery? I recognise that from the army!]

[Yes, those are our modern howitzers! Why are they here?]

[How can they have our technology!]

WW1-era artillery guns constantly fired at the ships in the air, their design identical to the ones used by the People's Army. However, while they indeed were powerful, they had limited lethality, not being able to penetrate the internals of the ships. After all, their armour was designed to defend against exactly them.

The armour of battleships, while very strong, was not specially designed to defend against magic, swords, or arrows, it was designed to resist the most powerful weapon of its era; guns.

Faced with armour specially made to counter it, the normally powerful artillery pieces found their effectiveness to be quite limited.

In the command room overseeing the operation, Erwin frowned at the sight. Deep in thought, he snapped back to reality as he saw the Fleet aim their guns at the targets.

[Stop! Hold fire! Don't shoot!]

[Their threat is minimal. Instead of destroying them, it's better to capture them to see where they came from]

[Paratroopers!]

Hatches opened on troop transporter ships as paratroopers streamed out, their dark parachutes blooming in the sky as they descended down onto the city.

Suddenly, flashes of fire came from the ground as hidden anti-air guns opened fire, their glowing tracer rounds filling the sky.

[Why are there AA guns here?!]

[They've stolen our weapons! Damn, just die obediently!]

[Why aren't our cannons shooting? Kill them all!]

The paratroopers had always been the ones to shoot at the enemy, they had never been shot at with guns before. Knowing full well the lethality of AA guns, they fired their guns downwards in panic. Bullets flew wildly through the air, shooting through paratroopers and their parachutes, sending them plummeting down to the ground.

From his command room, Erwin and his generals reacted much more calmly to their own weapons being used against them.

[Their shooting is very amateuristic, they have no idea how to lead their shots]

[Indeed, they most likely only recently acquired them]

[We need to find the source where our technology leaked, and if there are more countries that have our weapons. We must try to keep our technological advantage for as long as we can]

[Send more paratroopers. Don't bombard the area with guns, lest we destroy any evidence]