Three Fernando-class battleships plowed through the wreckage still scattered across the sea and continued their advance.
The main island was already close enough to see clearly.
A translucent cocoon of golden light enveloped the entire island.
The light was not dazzling, but it carried a pressure that made people instinctively hold their breath.
Runes flowed slowly across the surface of the barrier. This was protection bestowed by a god's own hand-or at least, that was what ordinary people would have believed.
Inside the bridge, Alwin gave a probing order. "Fire one high-explosive shell."
The turret adjusted its angle, and loading was completed.
Boom!
The shell exploded the instant it touched the barrier.
But the flames spread across the barrier's surface, and the shockwave was absorbed in full, raising only a single ripple in the golden layer, like a pebble dropped into the middle of a lake.
The barrier remained intact. In fact, it grew brighter after absorbing the energy.
Louis stood by a side window and raised a pair of high-powered binoculars.
Looking through the barrier, he saw the island's true shoreline.
Tens of thousands of white-robed worshippers knelt tightly packed along the shore, crowding layer upon layer from the reefs to the tideline.
Their lower bodies had already fused with the earth. Below the knees, they had become rootlike golden veins, buried deep in the sand.
Their hands were raised high, their heads tipped back, their lips moving soundlessly.
With every beat of their prayers, the blood vessels beneath their skin glimmered faintly gold.
Their life force was being drained, flowing through their roots into the earth before some power drew it up and fed it into the barrier overhead.
They were emaciated and hollow, yet the Golden Feather Flower kept them in a state of abnormal frenzy, like