Chaos' Heir

Chapter 1627: Landing

A giant ship was pushing from behind the layer of reality, treating the very sky as nothing more than a glass curtain to pierce through its sheer weight.

And the ship succeeded, quite easily, on top of that. The sky looked too brittle and thin to endure the weight of that massive vessel, breaking apart as if it were a mere piece of paper.

The caved-in section expanded as more of the ship’s hull pushed on it. The sky was literally falling, but its shards just vanished, revealing more of the invading vessel and the world where it came from.

The ship came from complete and utter nothingness, which was somehow crashing into it. It seemed the vessel was at risk of being eaten away by that non-existent blackness, but its fearsome features failed to attract the vast audience on the ground.

First, the audience didn’t really have the ability or knowledge to study that nothingness. Even the scanners pointed at the sky were failing to capture anything at all.

Second, as more of the ship became visible, some experts among the audience started to recognize it. That phenomenon also became a common trend among less savvy members of the crowd. After all, it had barely been a day since they had seen that same vehicle leave for war.

Nevertheless, no one cheered. Despite the familiar sight, the crowd remained wary. The Leviathan-class ship’s return alone didn’t say anything about the war’s outcome in the end.

As far as the audience knew, that could be a tactical retreat, something that could worsen the already terrible optics around the universal war.

Still, cautious optimism spread, which the continuous descent of the ship gradually quelled since the experts among the audience became able to see and inspect some concerning details.

Obviously, the scientists had immediately tried to get into contact with the Leviathan-class ship, only for it to remain unreachable, which wasn’t exactly tragic.

That gargantuan vessel had flown into a literal separate universe, facing unpredictable environments and dangers. Coming back with an intact communication array would have been more unlikely than the alternative.

But the other features the scientists managed to spot and discern weren’t as trivial or expected. The ship was flying without the basically mandatory mana barrier. Moreover, it wasn’t flying at all.

That giant vessel was free-falling in an increasingly accelerating momentum due to Earth’s gravity, its trajectory putting it on a crash course with the center of the encampment.

Needless to say, that was a tragedy waiting to happen. The encampment mainly had mana-enhanced warriors, but the Leviathan-class ship was truly massive, and its uncontrolled crash could wipe out far more than the entire crowd.

Luckily, only the scientists, those with direct access to specific scanners, and a few experts savvy enough to inspect such details with their bare eyes spotted the worrying feature. They were also wise enough to remain silent to avoid mass panic, but that couldn’t be the final solution.

Avoiding the mass panic was indeed wise, but there was a limit to how long the experts could delay it. After all, if that free fall continued, the crowd would eventually lack the time to evacuate the area.

And that free fall seemed to want to continue until the scientists saw signs of hope. The scanners suddenly picked up mana signatures coming from the Leviathan-class ship. Nothing happened yet, but that update served as confirmation that someone was actually trying to steer that vessel.

Then, something lit up. The mana barrier started to appear, only to instantly fail to stabilize, vanishing as quickly as it had formed.

The ship had completely left the crack in the sky by then, which was already reforming, restoring itself to its clear, intact state in a few seconds.

The benefits of that exit didn’t stop at that, either, since more mana signatures came out from the vessel, this time leading to successful functions.

The mana barrier never returned, but some of the ship’s engines lit up, filling the sky with their whooshing noises. Despite that, the giant vehicle kept descending, its tip pointing threateningly at the encampment, but the scientists no longer felt any worry.

As predicted, the engines eventually did their job. The Leviathan-class ship began to slow down and straighten itself. It was still approaching the encampment with its massive size, but the scanners’ calculations gave the all-clear.

The ship grew closer and closer to the surface until it completely stopped. It had achieved complete horizontality by then, allowing it to move in a direction where it didn’t risk causing a catastrophe.

The Leviathan-class ship started to head for the vast white desert, and the crowd stared at it for a while before springing into action, partially creating some of the mass chaos the scientists wanted to avoid, to head toward the various vessels in the area.

Many even ditched the vessels altogether, relying on their mana-enhanced skills to run or fly after the giant ship on foot. They knew it was about to land anyway, so it was just a matter of catching up with it.

Usually, the larger the ship, the longer it took to perform a safe landing. However, the returning vessel didn’t exactly function properly, not completely at least, leading to quite the violent crash on the sand.

That seemingly uncontrolled landing lifted storms of white sand that covered the entire area, preventing those approaching the Leviathan-class ship on foot from seeing anything.

Even most vessels that had set off from the encampment struggled to orient themselves in the face of those sandstorms, planning to wait for the interference to pass instead of diving into it.

Of course, many ships dived into the sandstorms anyway. After all, leaders and important guests had gathered in the encampment, so they had access to suitable equipment that mere bad weather couldn’t affect.

Zalpa was inside one of such vessels. The Nognes family had been more than prepared, so the ship she was riding was among the first to pierce the sandstorms and land past it.

The landing had no other reason than the fact that the ship had reached its destination. It had stopped near the edge of the flattened and pushed-away area the Leviathan-class vessel had created, which had already started disembarking troops.

Zalpa, Princess Rebecca, and their escort disembarked, too, and many of the teams that had landed with them did the same. Everyone wanted to see the army’s state with their own eyes and receive an update on the war, but someone far tinier beat them to it.

Regulations and safety measures required ships to have enough space for the disembarkation of their crews.

The Leviathan-class vessel demanded even more than that due to its size and potential population. It wasn’t even functioning properly, so all the newcomers kept their distance.

Yet, Yeza didn’t really care for regulations. She had been in Zalpa’s arms during the flight and disembark, but her tiny figure struggled out of her embrace as soon as she sensed something familiar.

Of course, Zalpa herself let Yeza go, more reassured than she would ever admit to when she understood the reason behind that instinctive reaction.

Yeza set off on her own, flying across a quite commendable chunk of the desert on her own, before cold arms caught her. Liiza had rushed ahead as soon as she had landed on the sand, since reuniting with her daughter took utmost priority.

Liiza hadn’t even been alone. The two Royal Guards had followed her, while the rest of the army was hastily disembarking around the ship. The process was quick, ending before the crowd from Aynor could reach that landing area, and most of that was due to the troops’ far lower number.

It immediately became clear to anyone watching the scene that the war had been bloody, but another critical detail stood out and claimed everyone’s attention.

Despite the presence of the elite team, the army was missing its two leaders, whose absence couldn’t possibly go unnoticed.

However, while some despair spread, Zalpa only looked at Liiza, who had started gazing at the sky while holding Yeza with all the love she could muster.

And, before Zalpa could follow Liiza’s glowing gaze, a thunderous noise resounded, followed by a suffocating, oppressive presence that awakened atavistic, instinctive fears in anyone on the scene.

Anyone but Liiza and Yeza, and the latter even disturbed that tense, almost solemn event with her happy, innocent laugh.