A nuclear warhead with a yield equivalent to twenty tons of TNT. The thirty pound projectile flew nearly three miles, straight into the luxurious bedroom at the highest tower of the citadel. It only missed the Queen of Northland’s head by a few meters. She saw the muzzle-flash, but never had a chance to hear the sound of the cannon firing.

“Beautiful.” The little boy whispered, as he watched the blindingly bright explosion through the main display screen. Linda couldn’t speak or even breath, she just stared ahead with her tiny mouth agape.

The upper part of the tower was vaporized and the rest of the fortress was blasted apart. Even before the gigantic stones started raining down from the sky, there was a powerful heatwave and deafening roar that rang out across the entire cityscape.

“A little underwhelming compared to typical nuclear warheads though. Oh well, it’s time to go.” Beatrix turned the main cannon towards the gate and was about to fire, but those massive double-doors started rapidly opening to let them through. If she didn’t need to worry about collateral damage, then she would have simply blasted the gates apart and left already.

Unfortunately, they had to wait close to ten minutes for the three separate gates to open. In all that time, Linda was just staring listlessly at the screen and shivering with her arms crossed.

“Why did you do that? All those people… Her Majesty, His Royal Highness, all the servants… Even that newborn baby we just saw. All of them are dead. Why? There weren’t even any soldiers!”

Hearing that solemn question, the little boy casually replied “Collateral damage. The tyrants who rule this country are now dead… But even if you cut the head off of a hydra, a new one will always take its place. I suspect that there will likely be a terrible civil war from now on. There were only…” He glanced down at the back of his hand and saw the number ‘3827’, but most of those deaths were caused by the debris from the citadel falling down across the city.

“Then why would you do that?! How many innocent people are going to suffer because of what you just did?!” Even if she was their slave, she was still surprisingly empathetic towards her former masters.

Beatrix smirked, staring at the smoldering ruins at the top of that small mountain. Then he explained “That old woman, your ‘Master’… She gave me this power and entrusted me with a very important mission. To conquer this primitive world. My actions will definitely ‘destabilize’ this country and the amount of people who will die, even I can’t predict. However, is a peace built on the back of slaves, really worth keeping? With chaos, comes opportunity.”

“C-conquer the world? But, why? What’s the point?” Linda had no idea how big the world really was, since she spent her entire life in the slums of a single city. There was no way that she could even imagine how difficult a task that was… Rather than being dismissive, she simply wanted to know why her master would wish for such a thing.

The little boy sighed, ordering “Just drive. We need to escort these people to some sort of shelter, or they won’t be able to survive in this frigid weather.”

***

“Thank you, Divine Beast!”

“We give thanks to the Divine Beast for your benevolence!”

“You made me lose an eye, but at least I kept my life!”

“Thank you, Mister Demon!”

People of all shapes, sizes and shades came over one after another in order to give thanks to Judgement Day. However, even though the ‘creature’ didn’t say anything to them, they knew that it wouldn’t stay with them for much longer.

They had been escorted to a medium-sized walled city to the south of Norfolk Castle. It was formerly one of the biggest slave-trading outposts in the country, which is why it was so easy for the rebellion that happened the night before, to succeed.

Unlike before, when the tank needed to slowly follow after them, it suddenly started to pick up speed. After reaching about thirty miles per hour, it didn’t continue going any faster. However, that was already rather swift. Within a few minutes, the giant vehicle disappeared into the dark and gloomy night.

***

“Wow, this is so amazing!” The little Gnomish girl was bouncing up and down on her relatively large seat, staring at the scenery that was displayed on the curved panoramic main screen. There was also rear and side views, so she didn’t even feel like she was inside.

Ares had a thin smile on his pale lips, enjoying the sight of his older sister having fun. He wondered ‘How long has it been since then? Back when she got her driver’s license and used to take me everywhere…’ But her pleasant memories were interrupted by something that abruptly appeared on one of the monitors.

“Ah~?!” Linda screamed and immediately released the gas grip, but the tank continued moving forward while only slowing down slightly. However, none of that mattered, because what she was looking at wasn’t on the ground anyway.

“The Morning Star… Venus? What’s happening?” It was a planet that she had traveled to many times in the past, so it wasn’t surprising that Beatrix instantly recognized the gigantic orangish moon that abruptly rose up in the northern sky.

The mana-scanner was freaking out and making all kinds of loud noises, so he just turned it off. Even without that device, he was easily able to see that a massive amount of mana was being used to alter that planet dramatically. Venus was getting smaller by the second.

Beatrix turned towards the terrified Gnome and ordered “Drive towards that direction… To the north.”

There was a colossal beam of highly concentrated mana shooting up towards Venus. It looked like a pillar connecting Elysium to that orangish planet in the sky.

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