Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

The Prince and his group had been moving through the Upper District, and unknowingly, they had led the Compassionate Mother around in a large circle, arriving at the highest part of the Upper District.

It was worth noting that the Upper District had walls. Some sections were nothing more than simple partitions, while others were as thick and imposing as fortress walls.

This was the thickest section of the wall.

The terrain here had a sharp drop, and on top of that stood towering walls. This was because directly below lay the source of Blood Harbor’s chaos—the most disorderly slums of the Lower District.

It was ironic. Just one wall separated two worlds: on the left, broad streets and bright, clean windows; on the right, filth and squalor, a hellish slum.

Voices carried easily across the divide, and it was common for nobles to lean over the wall, peering down as if watching beasts in an arena.

The structure here formed a “C” shape. The Prince’s group stood atop the highest part of the wall. Though they seemed to have stopped casually, if one looked from behind, the path was already cut off.

They were betting—betting that this Heretical God would recklessly charge forward, regardless of the buildings below.

The Compassionate Mother indeed paid no heed to the obstacles before her. She surged forward, leaping past the wall and stomping onto the tightly packed rooftops of the Lower District.

“An… an earthquake?!”

“What’s going on?”

“Look! Why did that monster fall through?!”

The Holy Guard fell into chaos, while Kyle turned his head toward Granny. A look of sudden realization appeared on her face.

Sensing Kyle’s gaze, Granny pointed at a distant bell tower. “Look, the Compassionate Mother was originally over there.”

“You mean—”

“This place was prepared beforehand! The Prince deliberately lured the Compassionate Mother here to make her fall in!” Light flickered in Granny’s eyes as she stared fixedly at the massive pit. “No… not just that!”

At the other side of the pit, the Compassionate Mother crashed down, sending up a storm of dust, obscuring everything from view.

The Prince stood unmoved, his face expressionless, his voice cold as he spoke. “You know, I’ve long despised this Lower District.”

“Chaos, disorder… layer upon layer of crooked houses piled together, and those ancient sewers that no one even knows where they lead.”

The dust gradually settled.

The Compassionate Mother had fallen into the pit—or more precisely, it wasn’t a pit at all. Her massive body had collapsed the rotting layers of Lower District buildings and, carried by momentum, had smashed through into the ground, becoming lodged within the fragile, tangled sewers, her body smeared with filth.

But if one looked closely, it wasn’t just filth and trash surrounding her. Wooden crates lay all around.

Further away, Harbor Guards were retreating, and many crates yet to be thrown down were stacked nearby.

While the Holy Guard and the Prince’s group had fought the Compassionate Mother, the Harbor Guards had been transporting crates, dumping them endlessly into the Lower District below.

“This… this was your plan, Isabella?”

Suspended in midair, the Prince’s spirit looked in shock at the Compassionate Mother stuck in the ground. When he turned to Isabella, he was startled.

Isabella’s face twisted with fury. Through clenched teeth, she spat her words. “Plan? I had no time for plans! These are the gunpowder stores I painstakingly hoarded! Ships I seized, wealth I plundered from nobles—all exchanged for these crates! They were meant for the war against the Church, and now I have to waste them here!”

The number of crates in the pit was staggering, packed densely in every direction. Among them lay all manner of random kindling. Time had been short, so the Harbor Guards had emptied the nearby warehouses, piling everything into this spot.

“Light it up! Burn this monster!!” she roared furiously. Snatching a musket from her waist, she fired downwards with hatred carved across her face.

The other Harbor Guards sprang into action. Some aimed muskets at the crates and fired, others hurled torches, while still others loosed flaming arrows from crossbows.

Time seemed to slow as streaks of fire arced toward the bottom of the pit.

BOOM!!!!

A blast of orange and black flame erupted underground. The mountain of flesh let out a wailing howl.

One explosion followed another. Blossoms of fiery orange-red burst around the Compassionate Mother, and for the first time, her colossal form was halted.

The explosion’s power far exceeded the Harbor Guards’ expectations. Some too close were swallowed by the blast itself. Galahad seized Isabella and dashed away from the blast zone, her expression visibly pained.

“Damnable filth, shit-eating Devil Fish, filthy maggots—my gunpowder, my money!!”

The deafening explosions shook all of Blood Harbor. The Holy Guard dove to the ground, though Granny remained standing, transfixed by the sight.

The blasts were immense. The entire pit of gunpowder ignited at once, unleashing a brilliance never before seen. Since the invention of this alchemical creation, no one had ever squandered it so extravagantly.

Even the Royal Army, flush with military funds, used it only as musket powder. Everyone knew it had far greater destructive power, but no one had dared employ it directly for explosive attacks.

—Because gunpowder was simply too expensive.

Alchemists often had shadowy ties with the great Churches. The formula for gunpowder was a closely guarded secret, but it undoubtedly contained supernatural substances.

Anything tied to the supernatural meant rarity and exorbitant cost. Even the Empress of the Empire would never dare waste it so wantonly.

Yet here, Isabella had emptied all of Blood Harbor, even seizing merchant ships, to amass this fortune of crates—only for it all to vanish in a few breaths.

The smoke began to fade.

“I didn’t expect this kind of ending. I truly underestimated the Prince,” Kyle said, patting dust from his clothes as he stood.

The intensity of the blast could have blown apart even a swarm of Sea Urchin Monsters. To the Holy Guard—devotees of explosive yields—there was no mistaking it.

With the Compassionate Mother’s size, she could not withstand such a blast. Her body was far less resilient than that of a Sea Urchin Monster.

As the dust settled, what had been a towering mountain of flesh was now reduced to scattered chunks, nearly liquefied into a pool of meat, filling the pit below.

The Holy Guard members stood with conflicted expressions, though their impression of the Prince had improved considerably—devotees of explosive yields could never resist a grand detonation.

In the distance, the Harbor Guards had already erupted into cheers. No matter what, Blood Harbor was their home.

Only Granny still frowned, her gaze locked on the pit.

Suddenly, her expression changed.

“No! That Heretical God isn’t dead yet!!”