I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution
Chapter 267 : Mom, Save MeAs the celebratory atmosphere approached its peak near evening, the shrill air raid sirens and the overwhelming rain of bombs dropped by the bombers composed a brand-new festival symphony.
Thousands of tons of incendiary bombs from the leading bomber formations fell in perfect unison around the outskirts of the royal capital. Countless people were still celebrating the Goddess's Birthday Festival, and before anyone could even react, they were swallowed whole by a sea of flames.
Husbands watched their wives burn to death alive. Mothers embraced their children as both of them were transformed into walking torches. The air was filled with the pungent stench of chemical gases, the aroma of roasting flesh, and the foul odor of burning fat.
The surging inferno rolled up like towering waves. The crimson sky illuminated houses and streets reduced to ruins. The originally dim heavens shone as brightly as daytime, and even the main forces of the Alliance Army ten kilometers away could clearly see the towering pillars of fire.
Although the royal capital's buildings were generally more magnificent and luxurious, they had never departed from the traditional foundations of wooden and stone construction.
After all, with sufficient wealth and status, constructing buildings from wood and stone that rivaled reinforced concrete in both height and strength was not particularly difficult.
However, wooden buildings required protection against decay and insects, and most of the preservatives used for that purpose were not fire-resistant. Instead, they often fueled the flames even further.
In the past, magic had always been able to eliminate this hidden danger at any time, but before napalm bombs, even magic paled into insignificance.
The extremely high temperatures and prolonged burning created massive heat accumulation that drove away every other elemental force from the surrounding area, while the toxic air repelled and expelled anyone who dared approach.
Some people hid inside sealed spaces, hoping to avoid the incendiary bombs, only to find that the rapidly depleted oxygen and superheated steam turned every breath into an internal steaming of their trachea and lungs with scorching air, condemning them to an even more agonizing death.
Everyone fortunate enough to survive the first wave of incendiary bombs—whether mages or soldiers, nobles or commoners—madly fled toward the royal palace at the center of the capital.
At least three hundred bombers had been assigned to each of the southeastern, southwestern, northeastern, and northwestern corners of the Royal Capital of Itsamein, conducting low- and medium-altitude saturation bombing. The moat surrounding the city and the countless waterways running throughout it gradually boiled under the intense heat of the napalm continuously flowing into them.
The survivors hiding in the water in hopes of cooling themselves and staying alive watched in despair as the burning gelatinous napalm floating together across the water drifted ever closer to them, while the temperature of the river continued to rise.
Along the riverbanks lay huge piles of charred corpses still burning like blackened charcoal. The heaps stood over two meters high, all of them civilians who had attempted to leap into the water to survive.
They were both unfortunate and fortunate.
Unfortunate because they had failed to jump into the river and gain even a few more minutes of life.
Fortunate because dying sooner meant escaping sooner, sparing them from continuing to endure this boundless inferno.
The Alliance military adopted a frontline command delegation system. The high command was only responsible for setting broad strategic objectives, formulating general plans, and providing weapons, supplies, and intelligence support. The specific execution of combat operations was left entirely to the local commanders.
In other words, the Commander had approved the large-scale bombing plan against Itsamein, and Mitiya had authorized the operation, but neither of them knew how the bombing would actually be carried out or to what extent it would be taken.
The Holy See was incredibly unlucky. The commander in charge of this air raid, Air Force Major General Nigel Aster, just so happened to be a war orphan from the former Kingdom of Palia.
As the descendant of someone who had once been betrayed by the Holy See Allied Forces, his hatred toward the Holy See could hardly have been greater, and this entire operational plan had been personally drafted by him.
His goals and intentions were crystal clear, and he stated them directly during the meeting.
“If the Alliance loses this war, I fully believe I will stand trial for the crimes I committed during it.”
“But regardless of the outcome, even if I had to do it all over again, I would never regret the choice I made today!”
The tactical plan was simple. Incendiary bombs would first be dropped around the city's perimeter to create a ring of fire, using both the wind and the flames to drive everyone toward the center of the royal capital.
The main bomber formations would then dump every remaining napalm bomb into the city's center in one overwhelming strike, causing devastation to blossom from the heart of the capital and maximizing the destructive effect of the air raid.
Naturally, everyone inside was included.
That included the civilians.
The densely dropped incendiary bombs exploded atop the magical protective shield covering the central royal city.
Each shattered rubber canister scattered gelatinous napalm containing white phosphorus, which ignited in midair and burst into brilliant blossoms of fire in countless different shapes, far more mesmerizing than the fireworks that had exploded across the sky moments earlier.
The super magical shield surrounding the royal palace, reinforced continuously over many years and empowered by countless mages, kept all the napalm outside. The entire transparent hemispherical barrier was completely covered by a mass of blazing crimson liquid.
The roaring sound of aircraft repeatedly drawing near and then disappearing into the distance constantly reminded everyone that the bombardment outside had not stopped.
Countless civilians crowded onto the four great bridges connecting the inner city to the outer city across the moat surrounding the royal district. Looking up at the blazing crimson sky overhead, the fear and sense of impending doom in their hearts reached their absolute peak.
Having just witnessed the horrifying destruction of the outer city, they desperately squeezed together while frantically searching for somewhere to hide. Massive stampedes erupted again and again within the cramped area.
The newly crowned King of Demitria did not even dare remain in the royal palace. Bringing the queen and the rest of the royal family with him, he escaped through secret tunnels and took refuge inside the Itsamein Grand Cathedral. With the Goddess of Light present there, the cathedral headquarters was undoubtedly the safest place in the entire kingdom.
Naturally, he was not the only one to think of that.
However, the cathedral's capacity was limited. In the end, only great nobles holding the rank of Count or above were allowed to bring their families inside. Other nobles were permitted to bring only a single companion.
That requirement alone threw countless lesser noble households into complete chaos. No matter whom they chose to bring inside, they would inevitably be resented by everyone else. Even if they chose their parents, they still had to decide whether to bring their father or their mother, leaving one behind regardless.
No matter how much turmoil unfolded inside, as more and more napalm accumulated outside, the entire protective barrier began to tremble on the verge of collapse.
Generally speaking, shaped-charge armor-piercing weapons were the nemesis of magical shields.
But in many situations, napalm was an even greater one.
Magic attacks were at least mostly instantaneous. Once one survived the initial impact, it was usually over. Napalm, however, possessed terrifying persistence and extreme temperatures. Once anything became coated with it, it became an extraordinarily troublesome problem.
Napalm bombs were like gigantic spells that never stopped casting themselves. As their numbers increased, their power continued to grow, the temperature rose ever higher, and dispersing the accumulated heat became increasingly difficult.
The total amount of napalm dropped by the Ceres Federation was equivalent to several demigod-level powerhouses relentlessly bombarding the entire city without pause, causing the magical shield generated by the royal capital's super magic array to consume mana at an astonishing rate.
The longer they held out, the more panic spread through the corps of mages inside the royal palace as they desperately poured mana and mana crystals into sustaining the barrier. The thickness of the molten fluid outside was equivalent to an entire river of lava pressing down upon the palace—or rather, as though the palace itself had been buried beneath molten lava.
Faced with such an overwhelming volume of burning liquid, they could not even imagine the horrifying fate awaiting them once their mana was exhausted.
As the flames spreading from the outskirts of the royal capital advanced ever closer to the central district where everyone had gathered, the inferno on all sides combined with the river of napalm descending from the sky to completely seal off the city's perimeter. Other than flames, nothing else could be seen.
'Crack... Crack... Crack...'
After a series of crisp cracking sounds, countless fine fractures suddenly spread across the crimson magical barrier, and streams of the all-pervasive gelatinous fluid began seeping through.
“Ah!!! It's breaking!”
“It's over! We're going to die! We're all going to die!”
“Mom! Mom, save me!”
“Great Goddess above! Please protect your faithful servants!”
'Crack!'
Amid countless screams and desperate prayers, the magical shield finally shattered into countless specks of light.
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