The mountain above the intact canyon suddenly exploded.
What could have caused it?
For a medieval person like Eric Smith, there was only one answer that came to mind.
An ambush.
Realizing that a cannon fired from 10km away had destroyed the mountain was impossible for Eric Smith, who had no knowledge of modern warfare.
Thus, Eric Smith chose the most common response an Infantry soldier could make when caught in an ambush.
"The enemies are not that numerous! Each officer, focus on calming the soldiers! The Wyvern Knight Order will fly over the canyon and search for the enemies lying in ambush!"
From Eric Smith's standpoint, it was a reasonable response.
Wyverns did not exist in the South. Nor were high-quality horses bred there in any significant numbers.
Therefore, the South had almost no mobile forces. At most, the ambush would involve a few dozen or a few hundred enemies.
Besides, an ambush was not simply a matter of arriving first.
To collapse a mountain like this, at least several days of preparation would be needed.
That meant it was not something the slow Southern Army Main Force, marching 100km with only infantry, could have accomplished.
In other words, the enemies who could physically arrive here in advance and attempt an ambush numbered, at most, a few hundred.
"At most, it is an ambush on the scale of a few hundred! Everyone, do not panic and form ranks!"
And an ambush involving only a few dozen or a few hundred enemies would be easily swept away by the friendly Wyvern Knights following behind.
The Wyvern Knight Order would eliminate the ambushers, after which the army could gather and clear the rocks from the collapsed valley.
That was the most rational judgment in this situation.
After all, allowing the ranks to collapse and confusion to spread over a mere few hundred enemies would result in even greater losses.
Fortunately, the discipline of the Western Regular Army, forged through war, was strict. The officers quickly began restoring order.
"All forces, assemble! Our skies are protected by the proud Wyvern Knight Order!"
"Show the proud and brave Western Regular Army in the face of the cowardly Southerners' tricks!"
"From now on, any soldier who scatters from the ranks or runs away will be summarily executed under military law! Everyone, maintain your ranks!"
And that rational judgment became the worst possible choice in this situation.
Gathering an army before a battleship's bombardment was tantamount to suicide.
There was no warning whatsoever before the second shell landed.
"...Huh?"
Only a few knights with excellent kinetic vision caught sight of the faint trajectory cutting through the sky.
The second bombardment was far more precise.
Eight shells landed, striking both walls of the canyon. Pitch-black smoke rose dozens of meters into the air as the unstable ground crumbled.
Kugugugung-!
Only then did Eric Smith begin to realize that something was wrong.
"An am...bush?"
There was no High-Rank Mage in the South.
He had heard that the South's leader, a man named Kyle Leopold, was a great mage. But surely, even he could not be up there casting magic himself?
Then how could an attack of this magnitude...
The human mind freezes when confronted with something it cannot understand.
Even Eric Smith, once called a famous commander of the Western Front, could not escape that state.
Behind him, as he stared blankly at the collapsed canyon, a commotion erupted.
"Mage! All mages, deploy defensive magic circles! Now!"
"My, my leg! Aaagh!"
"Help me! I don't want to die!"
"I'll cut down anyone who runs..."
"Don't talk crazy! If we stay here, we'll all die..."
"Father in heaven..."
The voice of a commander desperately trying to salvage the situation. The screams of someone buried beneath the collapsing cliff. Soldiers running around in panic, their nerves shattered, and others praying to the heavens.
The inside of the canyon descended into complete chaos.
Both the front and rear were blocked. An unknown force, neither magic nor an ordinary ambush, was attacking them. And there was the fear that it could strike again at any moment.
Faced with an incomprehensible threat, the soldiers were bound to break.
Then the third shell struck.
This time, the shot was far more accurate.
One of the eight 305mm Shells grazed past the collapsed cliff and landed inside the canyon.
The ground immediately erupted.
Kugugung-!
With a thunderous roar, the ground below glowed red. The earth swelled, and immense heat began pouring through the cracks.
The ordinary soldiers were not even given time to notice what was happening beneath their feet.
The explosion erupted like a volcano, and the bodies of the soldiers standing above it were literally melted away.
"..."
Neither a knight tightly wrapped in Aura nor a Mage who had deployed a defensive magic circle could remain safe. Where the blast passed, not even corpses remained.
Only then did Eric Smith begin to understand the identity of the attack raining down upon them.
"No way..."
Battleship.
An unidentified new weapon invented by the South.
A monster that had destroyed even a fortress guarded by one 8th-Rank Mage and two 7th-Rank Mages in a single blow.
"No, but... how?"
There were at least 8km between the coast and this canyon.
And it was not just the distance. The mountain range should have blocked their view as well. How could such a precise attack be possible?
But it no longer mattered.
Eric Smith had no need to concern himself with such questions.
Dreadnought's fourth salvo flew toward the canyon.
Kwagwang-!
Under the overwhelming pressure of the 305mm Naval Guns, the West's elite forces melted away.
This was no metaphor.
A human directly hit by a shell was annihilated without a trace.
Aura that could block 20mm bullets and withstand 76mm Shells? Against projectiles with dozens of times the mass and kinetic energy, it was nothing more than a strange, glittering light.
Before the power of a battleship, there was no difference between a knight using Aura and a firefly.
When the fifth shell landed, Eric Smith stopped thinking.
Even the instinct for survival only came into play when some means of survival remained visible.
Before overwhelming violence that crushed Aura, shattered magic, and destroyed the terrain, such things had no meaning at all.
***
An explosion erupted from within the canyon.
It was a hit signal that did not even need to be confirmed through a telescope.
"Shell 3, hit!"
As Johan reported, hurried voices came from the other end of the Crystal Orb.
-Turret No. 2's crystal reading is a hit! All turrets, align your firing angles with Turret No. 2!
-Turret No. 1 ready!
-Turret No. 4 and No. 5 ready!
-Shell 4, fire!
Kugwang-!
Once again, the naval gun spewed fire.
Exactly 15 seconds later, the canyon was once again shrouded in smoke from the explosions.
This time, three shells landed in the very center of the canyon. Three consecutive explosions shook the earth.
Could that place even still be called a 'canyon'?
The dirt and sand pouring down as the mountains on both sides collapsed filled the canyon, making it impossible for anyone to pass through.
The fate of those buried below?
"...I don't want to imagine it."
The battleship's naval gun fire continued. As the bombardment went on, its accuracy improved as well.
Thus, about 10 minutes later—
-Shell 10, fire!
By the time the tenth salvo struck, no trace of the canyon itself remained.
Even so, the battleship's naval gun fire did not stop.
As if to bury the enemy completely, the shelling continued to rain down on the canyon, whose terrain had already been utterly destroyed.
Johan stared blankly at the scene.
The shelling finally stopped after the thirteenth naval gun salvo.
-The Grand Duke and the Imperial Guard will soon arrive at the canyon. Cease naval gun fire.
However, Johan did not think that would be good news for any survivors inside the canyon.
He once again recalled the 'Imperial Guard' he had encountered at some point.
Ash-gray coats and ash-gray helmets. Ash-gray masks. Clad entirely in rigid colors, they possessed a strange, intimidating air unlike that of ordinary knights.
If knights symbolized honor and power, the Imperial Guard's attire seemed to embody the 'Empire' itself.
Especially those emotionless eyes that glowed red...
"Ugh, I definitely don't want to meet them as enemies."
Johan shuddered and put the thought out of his mind.
After all, he had no intention of learning about the darkness of the South.
***
"Nngh..."
Eric Smith groaned as he pulled himself up from the ruins.
It felt like the morning after getting thoroughly drunk, complete with a terrible hangover. His head was pounding, his vision was blurred, and his whole body ached.
But this was not a bed in his bedroom. He was in the middle of a battlefield.
As soon as Eric Smith recognized that fact, he tried to get to his feet.
"Survivor found."
Then he heard an eerie, modulated voice that inspired instinctive fear.
When he barely managed to open his eyes, he saw the shattered canyon and the devastated army. He also saw ash-gray soldiers searching for survivors.
Could they be a rescue team?
Eric Smith had been about to rise with that hope when he froze in place.
"No survivors."
With those cold words, a soldier wearing heavy armor over his entire body and carrying a heavy machine gun approached the fallen knight.
The gunshots that followed tore the knight's body to shreds.
Eric Smith's expression went pale and froze.