The war room pulsed with red alarms. Screens shook with the static of overstrained feeds, officers shouted in Spanish, Mandarin, English, and Hindi, their voices colliding in chaos. Reina Morales stood at the center like an anchor, her jaw tight, her eyes fixed on the abyss in the South Pacific.
The Second Gate towered above the waves—a storm of silver light spiraling into the heavens. From its widening maw had already spilled horrors: Leviathans, vast sea-beasts clad in runes of silver fire, their bodies longer than aircraft carriers, their eyes like cold moons. They tore through fleets, capsized destroyers, and dragged submarines into the deep. Humanity had fought dragons, knights, priestesses—but this was something older, primal. The ocean itself seemed enslaved to them.
“Admiral Zheng reports Leviathans breaching the Philippine line!” an aide cried. “Blue Titan mechs are engaging but—sir—they’re being crushed.”
Reina’s throat burned with the weight of the decision already forming. Every plan, every contingency they had prepared seemed suddenly small before the sheer immensity of these creatures. And yet, the Gate loomed behind them, pulsing stronger, threatening to disgorge even more.
She snapped, her voice like iron. “Authorize the strike.”
The room went silent. For a heartbeat, every eye locked on her.
“Commander—” Admiral Suresh began. “You mean—”
“Yes.” Reina cut him off. “We use the weapons we swore would be last resort. Nuclear release. Full barrage.”
Her words landed like a hammer. No one moved for a heartbeat. Then, slowly, the admirals nodded. Orders were relayed down secure lines, codes spoken in unison by trembling voices. Far away, submarine captains and bomber pilots unlocked safeties they had prayed would never be touched.
The Leviathans roared, their voices earthquakes through the ocean. They surged forward, maw and tentacle rising against the fleets.
And then the sky broke.
The first flash was brighter than dawn.
Sub-launched missiles arced through the heavens before plunging downward, their warheads shattering into suns upon impact. Fire consumed the sea. Mushroom clouds rose, boiling the horizon into pillars of death.
The Leviathans screamed as their rune-carved hides glowed in defiance, resisting annihilation. One beast lashed its tail, hurling a frigate into the air like driftwood even as the blast burned across its scales. Another bellowed, its voice shattering aircraft in the sky, before its skull was split by a column of fire descending from the heavens.
The ocean itself turned white with steam.
For a moment, it seemed as though nothing could withstand such fury. And indeed, the Leviathans faltered. Their colossal frames, designed to endure centuries in Forestia’s darkest seas, began to split, collapse, and finally disintegrate into charred ruin. One by one, the monsters fell silent, their bodies sinking beneath the waves.
Cheers erupted across human channels—fleets crying out in disbelief and triumph. The unstoppable had been stopped.
But the triumph died swiftly.
Because through the inferno, untouched by nuclear fire, the Second Gate still stood.
The flames licked at its edges, yet the silver construct shimmered, unharmed, like a moon immune to the touch of mortals. Elara’s magic—woven through priestesses and the Goddess Luna’s blessing—was beyond even Earth’s deadliest weapons.
The Leviathans were gone. The Gate remained.
And from its depths, new silhouettes began to stir.
Far above the chaos, Dyug rode his Lunar construct of silver wings, watching as the sea itself boiled beneath humanity’s wrath. His heart pounded—not from fear, but exhilaration.
They had slain the Leviathans. Impossible, yet true. Humanity, with its machines and forbidden weapons, had struck down beasts that even Forestia’s kingdoms treated as divine terrors. For the first time, Dyug felt a twinge of awe toward these mortals.
But then his gaze shifted to the Gate, still shining, still endless. Relief coiled in his chest. His mother’s will was unbroken.
“Mother,” he whispered to the sky, though he knew Queen Elara sat far away on her Throne of Moonlight. “Your gate endures. Your son will see it defended.”
His silver wings beat harder, carrying him into the fray. If humans thought destroying beasts meant victory, they would learn soon enough: the true army had yet to march.
On the deck of a shattered cruiser, Mary planted her spear into the metal to steady herself against the shockwaves. Her knights stood with her, battered but alive, staring in awe as fire consumed the sea. Follow current novels on NoveIＦire.net
When the Leviathans fell, she allowed herself a single breath of triumph. But then she saw it—the Gate, shining untarnished through flame and death.
Her fingers tightened on her weapon. She thought of Dyug, somewhere above, still defying impossible odds. She thought of Queen Elara, who demanded obedience yet chained them all to endless war. And she thought of humanity—terrible, desperate, but undeniably powerful.
“We hold,” she told her knights, her voice sharp as steel. “The Gate still stands. Our prince still fights. Until the end, we hold.”
And so the Royal Knight Corps raised their battered shields once more, bracing for what would come through next.
Watching from the crystal bridge of her fortress-ship, Elara’s gaze narrowed. The Gate’s light reflected in her silver eyes as she whispered to herself.
“They burn their world to ash, just to spite us.”
A priestess at her side trembled. “My Queen, shall we… intervene?”
Elara’s lips curved into something that was neither smile nor snarl. “Not yet. Let the boy prove himself. Let humanity feel hope.”
She lifted her hand, and the runes of the Gate pulsed once more, feeding power into the tide. In her heart, however, a rare thought stirred—unease. For the first time, she had witnessed humans answer her magic not with surrender, but with equal fury.
And somewhere, deep within that unease, the first whisper of doubt.
The nuclear storm faded. The sea boiled, the fleets reeled, the Leviathans lay dead. Humanity had struck a miracle. But the Gate loomed, flawless, its light intensifying.
From within, shapes began to coalesce—not beasts this time, but legions. Armored silhouettes, towering constructs of moonlight and steel, stepped forward into the world.
The Leviathans had been only the first act.
The true invasion was about to begin.