Above the Seventh Spire, the sky buzzed with forty overcharged cannons.
The forty heavy aether-cannons along the Ashford Armada broadsides had reached maximum power.
Blinding coronas of scarlet and sapphire mana swirled around each muzzle. The air turned into thick, suffocating plumes of purple plasma.
The high-frequency coil whine reached ninety-nine percent capacity.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
On the forecastle of the flagship Iron Sovereign, Fleet Admiral Balthazar Ashford raised his greatsword high.
His crimson cape whipped violently in the turbulence. His eyes flashed with imperial certainty.
"All batteries locked!" the chief gunnery officer screamed over the roar.
"Target coordinates: The squatter cottage! Core containment chambers are at maximum pressure!"
Balthazar’s lips twisted into a savage sneer.
"Let this peak be an eternal reminder to any who defy the Ashford name," Balthazar roared. His voice was amplified across the sky by brass acoustic horns.
"Fire on my command!" Balthazar ordered. "In three! In two—"
Squeak.
A tiny, dry sound interrupted the countdown.
It was the squeak of a rusty iron hinge.
The front door of the weathered timber cottage slowly swung open.
Through the doorway shuffled a young man wearing rumpled gray pajamas and frayed straw slippers. His messy hair looked like an exploded bird's nest.
Felix Vance stepped onto the porch.
He had his hands shoved deep into his oversized sleeves. His eyes were bloodshot with the righteous fury of an interrupted gamer.
He didn't look at the sky-galleons. He didn't look at the glowing cannon batteries.
He just walked to the edge of the weathered porch railing. He scuffed his slippers across the cedar boards and rubbed his temple with two fingers.
At the top of the stairs, Lyra turned her head. Her violet eyes flared with pure devotional awe.
"Senior Brother!" Lyra cried, her voice trembling.
"You have emerged from your slumber! Have you stepped forth to witness the arrogance of the Ashford Clan?!"
Felix didn't answer. He didn't even look at her he slowly tilted his chin upward, squinting at the twelve colossal iron dreadnoughts hovering directly above his roof.
A translucent black text box popped into his field of vision, hovering over the glowing muzzles:
【Target: Heavy Ashford Celestial Siege Battery x40】 【Status: Overcharged (99.8% Firing Capacity)】 【Acoustic Output: 118 Decibels of Pure Unshielded Garbage】 【Inspector Note: Forged by imperial blacksmiths who skipped basic shielding classes. These vacuum coils are humming like broken lightbulbs in an abandoned subway. Whoever engineered this layout should be banned from modding forums.】
Felix stared at the glowing blue-and-red cannons.
His left temple was throbbing violently. The shrill acoustic whine was vibrating directly against his skull bones.
It felt like someone was scraping two rusted butter knives together inside his eardrums.
Up on the flagship, Balthazar saw Felix staring up at him.
The admiral felt an inexplicable chill run down his spine. The young man wasn't trembling. He wasn't raising a barrier.
He was looking at forty imperial siege weapons with the mild irritation of a customer whose coffee was served lukewarm.
"Fire!" Balthazar shrieked, panic suddenly overriding his pride.
"Fire the cannons! Obliterate him!"
Down on the porch, Felix didn't draw a blade. He didn't chant an incantation.
Instead, his jaw clicked once.
His chest expanded.
Felix took in a massive, ragged lungful of crisp mountain air.
He stretched both arms straight over his head, interlocking his fingers with palms facing upward. He arched his back until his spine made three loud popping sounds.
Then, he opened his mouth wide.
He let out a colossal, universe-shaking afternoon yawn.
"HWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Inside his dantian, the dense, one-Earth-mass rocky core reacted to the sudden expansion of his ribs.
The six sextillion kilograms of compressed star-iron rotated sharply on its magnetic axis.
A massive gravitational tidal wave vented outward from his chest.
It did not emerge as a spell. It burst forth as a pure, focused shockwave of localized planetary mass.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The sky directly above the cottage did not catch fire. It was crushed by raw gravitational weight.
A shockwave of dense atmospheric pressure shot straight upward into the armada like a launched locomotive.
The piercing acoustic whine died instantly, crushed by overwhelming gravitational pressure.
The forty heavy celestial aether-cannons never got the chance to fire their volley.
Under the sudden hundred-fold gravity spike, the thick imperial star-iron barrels crumpled instantly.
CRUNCH! SQUEAK!
The massive gun barrels bent like warm copper noodles. Some curled backward into trombones, while others twisted into complete pretzels.
The expanding kinetic shockwave swept upward through the fleet like an invisible titan's fist.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
All forty-eight towering masts across the twelve sky-galleons were cleanly sheared off at their bases.
The colossal crimson war-banners embroidered with the Ashford Hawk were torn away, fluttering harmlessly down into the lower valleys.
The four massive obsidian war-anchors embedded in the Seventh Spire snapped like dry toothpicks under the gravitational shear.
Their runic suppression chains shattered into harmless red sparks.
The twelve colossal dreadnoughts lost all aerodynamic lift in a fraction of a second.
"Mayday!" the helmsmen shrieked across twelve bridges.
"The mana-turbines have stalled! We are falling!"
The entire battlefleet plummeted out of the sky like lead sinkers dropped into a pond.
Down on the porch, Felix finished his yawn with a loud, contented jaw pop.
Click.
He blinked away a tear of sleepiness from the corner of his eye.
He glanced up, seeing twelve giant iron warships dropping straight toward his front yard.
"Whoa, collision physics bug," Felix muttered, blinking sleepily. "Good thing I checked the settings menu."
On his AetherDeck screen, a small system toggle had been checked long ago:
[SYSTEM SETTINGS: COMBAT SAFETY PROTOCOLS]
PvP Lethality Mode: [DISABLED]
Non-Lethal Cushioning: [ALWAYS ON]
Catastrophic Hull Preservation: [ACTIVE]
Status: Falling entities converted to soft-landing physics.
As the twelve giant dreadnoughts reached fifty feet above the grass, the system enchantment triggered.
POOF!
A colossal, glowing white cushion of compressed air bloomed beneath the falling armada.
It looked like an enormous, magical bouncy castle inflating across the entire meadow.
BOING-SQUEAK!
The flagship Iron Sovereign hit the giant air cushion with a cartoonish bounce.
It bobbed three times in the air, rocked gently from side to side, and settled softly into the thick clover.
The other eleven dreadnoughts landed right beside it on the broad lawn. They touched down with soft, muffled thuds and gentle squeaks of metal.
Not a single soldier was crushed. Not a single drop of blood was spilled.
Instead, five hundred imperial soldiers tumbled out of the open hatches and rolled across the soft clover.
Little golden stars spun around their bruised helmets as they squeaked in total bewilderment.
Down on the Seventh Spire, none of the wooden shingles were even singed.
The crooked pine tree didn't lose a single needle.
The five-star cabbage swayed gently in the breeze. Its jade leaves absorbed ambient energy and bloomed brighter.
Cold jasmine tea in Felix’s chipped mug stayed still. Not a single drop was disturbed.
Felix reached into his sleeve, pulled out his cracked obsidian slate, and tapped the screen to check the notifications.
A series of amber boxes rolled across the glass:
[AETHERDECK OS: SYSTEM VENT COMPLETE]
Core Pressure Relief: 0.00005% Gravitational Mass Vented
Dantian Energy Dissipation: Optimal
Biological Migraine: Cleared [100% RELIEF]
[ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT]:
• Local Noise Pollution: Successfully Suppressed (0 dB)
• Warships Safely Parked on Lawn: 12 Vessels
• Pests Cleared from Airspace: 12 Large Flying Wasps
[Notice]: Ambient quiet restored. Nap conditions: OPTIMAL.
Felix smiled faintly, nodding in deep satisfaction.
"Ah, much better," Felix said, tucking the slate back into his tunic. "The coil whine is finally gone. Guess those noisy hot-air balloons finally blew a fuse."
He glanced down at his straw slippers, noticing a few dandelion seeds floating through the air.
"Pity about the noise, though," Felix added mildly, turning back toward the bedroom door. "Cheap pyrotechnics always ruin a good nap."
Up on the grass, complete and absolute silence reigned among the parked fleet.
Fleet Admiral Balthazar Ashford lay flat on his back in a patch of wild daisies.
His gilded helm had been knocked crooked, tilting over his left ear. His grand crimson cape was tangled in a briar bush. His leviathan-bone greatsword had landed three feet away, neatly stuck into a giant pumpkin.
His body shook.
Balthazar trembled with primal terror. His bladder threatened to empty into his gilded greaves.
A... a yawn... Balthazar wept internally, staring up at the empty sky, too terrified to move.
He didn't draw a blade. He didn't recite an incantation. He didn't even summon an elemental barrier.
He merely... opened his mouth... and breathed.
That was not human mana. That was not mortal magic.
That was the primordial weight of an entire world.
Beside him, the flag-captain lay face down in clover. He clutched his helmet in existential agony.
"Admiral..." the captain whispered, his voice cracking like dry glass.
"The... the forty heavy siege cannons..."
are bent into pretzels. The fleet...
"is parked on the lawn."
Balthazar didn't move. He couldn't move.
His soul was paralyzed by the memory. A pajama-clad youth had treated an armada like a mosquito, swatting it down with a yawn.
"Signal..." Balthazar managed to wheeze out through trembling lips.
"Signal the unconditional surrender... before he takes another breath."
Up on the porch, Lyra Ashford lowered her rapier. Her sharp violet eyes were wide with sacred wonder.
She looked at the twelve dreadnoughts resting peacefully in the grass like parked wagons. She looked at five hundred soldiers sitting in the clover, clutching their heads and staring at the flowers.
Senior Brother did not slaughter them, Lyra realized, her heart swelling with holy awe. He spared their lives, broke their weapons, and gave them a gentle landing on the grass.
His benevolence is truly boundless.
Felix pushed the bedroom door shut. He kicked off his slippers and pulled the blanket to his chin.
Within thirty seconds, his soft snores echoed through the quiet cottage.