Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

Viscount Fray’s heart suddenly skipped a beat for no reason, and an ominous feeling chilled him to the bone.

The next moment, all the wailing seemed to have been silenced by an invisible hand; the air fell eerily still.

Everyone froze.

Something seemed to have fallen from the sky. Viscount Fray widened his eyes, but he could not see a thing. Yet whatever had landed rippled across the ground—

Like raindrops striking a lake’s surface, splashing upward—

Scarlet droplets.

Blood and flesh splattered everywhere; soldiers and armor shattered together into fragments, dissolving into a mist of gore that swept silently through the ranks like a storm brushing across the sea.

And yet, there was no sound—only the tranquil bloom of death, as serene as flowers opening.

With each bloom, another line of men collapsed to the ground. No one screamed. No one panicked. They only stared blankly at the dancing fragments of flesh before them, their eyes filled with confusion.

What on earth was happening?

Viscount Fray drew his command sword, but his orders caught in his throat.

What command should he give? Attack? But where was the enemy?

Retreat? But where could they retreat to?

He gripped his sword in bewilderment, like a child trying to block a storm with a stick.

Then, the storm ceased.

People looked around in dazed silence. Blood splattered across their faces trickled down into their mouths, and that faint taste of iron finally brought their dulled souls back into their trembling bodies.

It was as if they had woken from a nightmare, only to find themselves already in hell.

Terror instantly enveloped every lost soul. The soldiers vented their overflowing fear through hysterical acts.

Everyone went mad. Screams, laughter, and sobbing blended together in a hideous symphony. Those who still clung to reason shakily pressed their muskets against their own throats, while the deranged danced amidst the sea of flesh.

Viscount Fray gasped for air, like a fish dragged suddenly from water—surrounded by the air it craved, yet still suffocating.

With trembling hands, he lifted his telescope, trying to locate the enemy—trying to understand what had happened.

“Calm down, calm down. The barrage has stopped—they must have some kind of limitation. Analyze, think, think!”

He frantically searched through the trembling lens. His field of view, shattered by shaking hands, could never have found anything.

But fate, somehow, favored him. Fray’s fingers froze—he had indeed caught sight of a figure in the distance.

The man was tall and broad-shouldered, his head turned as he spoke. Fray strained his eyes, trying to read his lips and decipher what he was saying.

“Look closely, think harder—you can do it, you can do it, you must do it!”

His stubborn will caused the high wall of reality to tremble. Fray’s ears filled with the sound of waves—the ripples of the Sea of Unawareness. Miraculously, he actually heard the man’s words.

“——Calibration complete. Begin fire coverage.”

The telescope slipped from his hands, landing among the scattered flesh.

Viscount Fray’s will had pierced the wall of reality and earned recognition from the Sea of Unawareness. Given time, he might have become a transcendent being—one who transcended reality itself and wandered another world.

Unfortunately, at that very moment, the howling bullets pulled him back into reality.

Like the crashing finale of a symphony, the entire allied formation erupted in chaos!

Bullets rained down. Flesh and blood burst into the air—it was a grotesque carnival.

If transcendence was the collision of wills, then Castel’s will was cold steel itself. It descended upon all equally—whether upon flesh, armor, cover, or even the transcendent—and tore them apart without distinction.

The sound of the tide faded from Fray’s ears, replaced by the shriek of bullets slicing through the air.

He closed his eyes.

A bullet pierced through his brow. The noble head it entered was no different from that of any other soldier—its contents splattering evenly across the soil below.

His ambitions and dreams were pressed into the mud with him.

The surrounding cries were choked off, like ducks strangled mid-screech—abruptly silenced. No one trembled anymore; no one felt fear. Conspiracies, schemes, nobles, and commoners alike—all were churned together into an indistinguishable pulp of flesh.

From the first scream to the final silence, only three minutes had passed.

Of those, one full minute had been calibration fire—the true storm of bullets lasted barely two.

The allied forces had no time to react. From beginning to end, they never even located the enemy, nor understood what had struck them. They saw only the silent sweep of Death’s scythe—then the mightiest allied army of the Northlands vanished without a sound.

There were no back-and-forth battles, no fearless assaults or heroic defenses, no cunning or strategy—only an unstoppable death.

When the first musket squad had appeared on the battlefield, the knights had charged through gunfire, shouting their ancient oaths, painting an era’s final punctuation with their blood and lives.

But the next era wouldn’t even witness its own curtain call.

From the moment the factories began devouring raw materials and spitting out steel, the outcome had already been written. Castel’s soldiers merely had to arrive and take their crowns with the steel in their hands.

Industry would reshape the world in ways no one could comprehend. They could either learn and try to understand that ineffable existence—or be crushed into mud beneath the iron wheels of madness, alongside the last age.

The world was not yet ready for change—yet it was already becoming unrecognizable.

And those caught in the very heart of the storm still hadn’t realized how fast everything was moving.

When the bullets fell, Hunter felt his vision go black.

His carriage, specially built by his family, had iron plates fitted in the doors and walls—enough to block stray arrows or musket balls on the battlefield—without sacrificing comfort. Hunter could even sit inside and read while marching.

But the incoming bullets tore it apart effortlessly. The collapsing carriage crashed down upon him, burying him beneath.

The iron-plated doors couldn’t stop the bullets—but the steel beams of the undercarriage suspension could.

Hunter’s family was powerful and wealthy; they spared no expense on his carriage. That extravagance, by sheer chance, saved his life.

Above him, he could hear the clanging sounds—the bullets striking steel—like raindrops on the stained glass of a cathedral: clear, crisp, almost musical.

Hunter had no idea what was happening. When he finally regained his senses, everything was silent again. Around him, there were no more sounds—only the thickening stench of blood.

From calm, to chaos, to stillness again—it had all happened in mere minutes.

As if the heavens had casually dropped a few raindrops, or a fleeting hailstorm had passed unnoticed—before anyone realized, it was over.

The Allied Forces of the Three Grand Dukes—completely annihilated.