A loud explosion roared overhead, followed by the creaking sound of turning cogs. The Sky Fortress Zeridheavens and the Demon King Express Beltexfenblem were soaring through the sky while shooting spellfire at each other.
The Demon King Express charged straight at Zeridheavens, undeterred by the continuous strikes of Veylonbosm shots wrapped in explosive fire. The distance between the two was being closed, and soon, they would collide head-on.
“Zeridheavens should be approaching their firing limit. Estimated six seconds until next reload,” Misha’s voice said.
“All turrets aligned!” the Fan Union replied.
“Not yet. Draw them closer,” Eldmed said to the turret room.
“Changing course. Destination: center of Zeridheavens,” Misha answered.
“W-We’re gonna crash into them?!”
“Bwa ha ha!” Eldmed ignored Ellen’s startled question and used his cane to steer the rudder straight towards Zeridheavens. “A collision would only benefit us. That artist would never steer his ship so poorly.”
The students in the engine room looked at him with wide eyes. Just as the train was about to make contact, Zeridheavens swerved to evade the Demon King Express.
“Fire away,” Eldmed said.
“This time for sure! Go!” the Fan Union shouted from the turret room. “Boros Hetheus!”
Ancient wheels were fired towards Zeridheavens as the two vessels passed each other. There was one more second until Veylonbosm could next be reloaded. With no ammunition left to shoot down the cogs, Zeridheavens could only accelerate away from the barrage. In the one second while they were unable to reload, the sky fortress shot through the sky faster than the spellfire could move.
“No way! How can a ship be faster than spellfire?!” Ellen yelled in disbelief from the turret room. Zeridheavens continued evading Boros Hetheus skillfully, swerving around until they had positioned themselves behind the Demon King Express.
“Bwa ha ha! They fell for it!” Eldmed laughed as smoke rose from the carriages of the train. “Chuff Chuff!”
The smoke vanished, revealing that the front and the back of the train had switched positions. Eldmed had cast the smoke spell prior to entering the air battle with Zeridheavens, reversing the positions of the carriages and hiding the change with a smoke illusion. In other words, the train had been moving in reverse this whole time.
“Connecting wheels to fifth cog. Full steam ahead,” Eldmed ordered.
“Roger! Connecting to fifth cog, full steam ahead!” the students in the engine room replied, swiftly changing gears to reverse their direction of travel.
As a train, Beltexfenblem could output the same speed backwards or forwards, but as the engine room was located in the front carriage, it was easier to steer from the front. The chimney being placed there also meant that the smoke barrier was thicker at the front of the train than at the back.
Farris had positioned Zeridheavens to aim for the weaker end of the train, having never expected that that same end had been facing him the entire time. But that had been Eldmed’s gamble.
“Bwa ha ha! Charge, charge, chaaarge!”
Just moments ago, Zeridheavens had been chasing the end of the train at full speed. Now that the Demon King Express was moving in reverse, the two vehicles were approaching each other at a far greater speed than before. There was no time to brake, and at this speed, evasion was impossible.
“H-Hey! Are we really going to charge into them now? If we crash we won’t be able to get out of it unharmed!” Sasha shouted in protest.
But Eldmed brushed aside her concerns with a bright rejoinder of his own. “Fear not, fear not! This much is needed to stop that ridiculously fast ship in its tracks! Just believe in the Demon King’s magic!”
“It’s getting a bit tough for me, but I’ll do my best!” Eleonore replied.
The light of Teoboros Ijelia grew brighter as Eleonore added additional layers to the barrier. Loud booms could still be heard as Veylonbosm made its concentrated fire on the train, but the barrier placed over the front blocked these shots completely.
In no time at all, the Demon King Express was right before the walls of Zeridheavens. But just as they were about to collide, the white smoke coming from the chimney vanished, with Teoboros Ijelia slowly fading with it.
In the engine room, one of the students working as a stoker had collapsed out of exhaustion.
Boros Hetheus, the speed of the fifth cog, and Teoboros Ijelia were all tied to the combustion in the boiler room that powered the Demon King Express. Though the students of the Demon King Academy had trained for this, the battle had forced them to throw coal at speeds far higher than they had ever trained for, and many of them had long reached their limit.
“Bwa ha ha! What a blunder!”
Eldmed cackled gleefully at losing his gamble. With Teoboros Ijelia fading, the train would now be crushed if it crashed into the Badirahier barrier.
“I see you’re still a fan of decalcomania, Conflagration King. Your fighting has all the beauty of surrealism,” Farris said through Leaks as the Demon King Express collided with Zeridheavens’s barrier. Teoboros Ijelia completely vanished right at the moment of collision. But Farris had eased the barrier around his own ship at the exact same time. “It’s not my own taste, but it’s elegant in its own way.”
Using the gap created by the vanished wall, Zeridheavens evaded colliding with the train by a hair’s breadth. As the long train shot past Zeridheavens, the sky fortress fired two quick shots of Veylonbosm.
“Damage detected in two connection points. First, second, and third cargo carriages now falling,” Misha’s voice said. All the cargo holds storing the firedew had been separated from the main body of the Demon King Express. If the enemy caught them, the Silverwater Ranking Skirmish would end in Balandias’s victory. Zeridheavens swiftly moved towards the falling cargo carriages.
“Fire Neos,” Eldmed ordered.
“Right away!” Ellen said.
“Firing Neos! Collect them all!” the Fan Union replied.
Cogs with suction power were fired from the turrets, one after another. But before they could collect the falling cargo carriages, they were blown apart by more Veylonbosm shots from Zeridheavens.
The train would never catch up to Zeridheavens in time at its current speed. As the sky fortress rapidly came within retrieving distance of the cargo carriers, a magic circle appeared beside it. Castle ramparts materialized and were deployed, with the cargo carriages on the inside.
“Dogda Azbedra.”
With a deafening sound, a hole opened in the Badirahier wall of the ramparts. I reached inside with Ygg Neas and retrieved the three cargo carriages.
“Bwa ha ha. That was a close one, Farris,” I said, flinging the carriages back to the Demon King Express, where they reconnected with the train. “Look here at how your chief god now fares.”
I intercepted the Leaks being exchanged on board Zeridheavens and held up Maytilen’s head in clear view of the sky fortress. Farris probably could have blocked my interference with some anti-magic wards, but it seemed he hadn’t bothered. With the chief god in my hands, they had no choice but to obey. The outcome of the match had already been decided.
Various voices muttered in horror.
“No...”
“How...”
“How could this happen?”
“He’s mutilated Chief God Maytilen...”
“Is this some kind of nightmare? I can’t believe it... The Great Castle of Causality fell so easily in the middle of Second Balandias, in the middle of our world?”
“What did that girl do? Is she some sort of god?”
“Are you saying that it wasn’t even their chief god who took down our chief god, but just a regular god? What does she govern? What kind of order could take down the Royal Tiger?”
“Lord Zaimon was defeated as well. Our overall formation has fallen apart, and there are no Sky Fortress Camlahi left.”
More and more words of dumbfounded disbelief spilled from within Zeridheavens.