Chapter 18: Conquest

The shipment of geartanks and tens of thousands of more troops arrived on schedule, just about over a week since Belle’s invasion of Europe had begun.

Things were already surprisingly stable. Belle had learned to harness her image, and the idea that a giant living metal god could step on one’s city quickly had every settlement forming in line.

She had made good use of that time, spending it conquering the middle eastern regions nearest to the regions of Europe. She also, of course, devoured countless prisoners alongside all but two cities in every nation, per nation, that she had recently claimed.

Her state of being was beyond. Her movements were fluid, faster than a human’s would be at her old, fleshy size. Her digestive processes also advanced to become far more efficient, to the point that nearly every atom of a meal was put to use. Her body was truly a marvelous thing.

The nations in Asia knew it, which is why they did nothing other than prepare a defense for her inevitable arrival. They couldn’t actually strike first, and the most intelligent leaders knew they would likely fail.

Belle was, after all, about 50 miles tall.

Indeed, she had more than doubled in size. Such was the state of her advancement. The complexities of her processes of growth and evolution could only said to be understood, even in part, by Belle herself.

When those geartanks arrived, Belle knew her hold was truly stable enough to leave Europe for a bit. She recalled some of her vast fleets of airships into the military city-plus-base on her body, then marched towards China.

As soon as she laid her bare brass feet in the region, she knew it’d be her favorite land to invade yet. It teemed with steamtech cities, each one about as marvelous as New York City itself--before she had broken much of it when she first broke out of the Voxhaben Complex over a year prior. Similarly, the cities were dense as the American Capital too. Billions of people inhabited the region, and they were all going to be Belle’s.

She felt her mouth water at the thought, already prepping herself for the feast to come.

The Chinese forces were formidable and numerous. Their troops and geartanks were packed dense enough to swarm the scant few countrysides in the vastly industrialized land. Their airships were plentiful enough to blot out the sky. For any other foe, that would have been an effective deterrent: something that could annihilate any force.

But, not so for Belle’s forces. Her steamtech was more advanced, and she herself was invincible. They couldn't’ even dent a toe of hers firing their tanks in unison. Few mountains could claim to crest her ankles. What hope did a middling tank have? A mere soldier to do anything to her?

She lifted a 7 mile long foot above much of their army, reveling as her immense shadow covered even their airships. Though it was wasteful, she couldn’t help but step down. Entire towns disappeared with the bulk of the Chinese military that had been set to greet her. All of it fell beneath the smooth underside of her foot--unless it found shelter beneath the arch, of course.

There was no better metaphor for her supremacy over humanity, Belle Thought, than being able to leave entire armies in her foot prints.

But, that was also a little less efficient than just capturing and devouring them. Her forces would harvest everything she had crushed for her consumption later, but she tried to be a little more considerate of efficiency when taking on the rest of China.

Just a little.

She still stepped on entire towns, and a couple more cities, but eventually she moved to a crawling position and assailed the nation that way. Her fingers could curl around entire metropolises, bringing them into her mouth and her body one gulp at a time. With a teasing smile on her face, she traveled the country thus, eating cities along the way till she at last reached the capital of Beijing. The city housed millions, and was several times New York City in raw area.

Opening wide, Belle lowered her tongue to its surface and lapped more than half of it yup.

“Yum~”, she said, letting her voice thundered over the land and every Chinese radio channel in the appropriate dialect.

While troops split off from her body, she moved into Korea next. The nation was another technologically advanced one, and Korean artillery was something to be feared worldwide.

By anyone but Belle, of course.

They had long steam cannons, with barrels extending for hundreds of feet at max. These were capable of lobbing shells halfway across their country if need be. Said shells managed to reach as high as Belle’s toes. She wiggled them, ushering in a quake which ravaged the region.

“Ha, that tickles.”, she said. “Cute weaponry, try some of mine~”

As she marched across that country, she looked down, pursed her lips, and blew. Thick clouds of boiling steam rushed out her mouth to fan over the land in her march. The searing storms destroyed entire towns and cities, ruined fields of crops, and cooked the enemy forces alive. Pilots boiled in their geartanks and airships.

That much of Belle’s own airships were caught up in the heat of things didn’t seem to guilt her one bit.

She quickly reached Seoul and just dug her entire hand into the city. It was scooped up like a great big brittle cookie. She chomped into half of it, gulping it down before clenching her fist. The other half, rather than be spared as usual, was instead crumbled to rubble. She let it drift into her open, city-devouring maw with mere wiggles of her fingers.

“Another nation, mine.”, she declared. No surrender had come in yet, but it would shortly. It was either that or perish entirely.

The last major player in the Asia region was Japan, which meant Belle got her toes wet as she waded over from Korea. It wasn’t long till Belle reached that island nation, and what laid before her gaze impressed even her.

The rumors were true, it seemed that some Asian nations were indeed working on floating steamtech cities. Japan was the one to have them, as well.

Hovering off the coast of the mainland were dozens of hovering settlements. Each was held aloft with a complicated series of propellers attached to vast platforms of metal on which massive gears visibly spun. Great big armored balloons also were attached via thick metal poles to the far corners of each floating settlements, on which teemed elaborate brass pavilions and other beautiful architecture which made up these rather expensive looking cities.

These were built not just for proof of concept, but also because Japan had to deal with its growing population crisis. There were more people than ever, but only so much land on the islands themselves. More land could be acquired by war, but the leaders refused to invade not just for humanitarian reasons, but also because they worried about deluding their culture and inadvertently disseminating steamtech secrets.

So, the rich moved to these flying cities, receiving supplies via airships when needed, such as for food which didn’t grow hundreds of feet up in the air.

Said rich were the first to be devoured or destroyed in Belle’s invasion as a consequence. Her massive form leaned down and real close to a cluster of two flying cities.

“Splendid.”, she said. One divine compliment before her tongue came out to curl around the cities and claim them.

Even flying as high as they did, Belle still had to at least crouch to reach reach them. She gathered most of them between her hands, keeping them as intact as possible before slurping them up.

What few she didn’t devour were simply stepped on as she took her first step onto the landmass proper. Dense settlements were crushed alongside more forces by just one of her unstoppable feet.

Belle found that enjoyable, yet repetitive. She elected to spice it up. Her next step wasn’t a step so much as a stomp. Her left leg bent, foot high in the air as she brought it down smack-dab over Japan’s main island.

She then stomped again, and again. Terrible earthquakes ravaged the region. The very island itself began to crack and tear in pieces. She clenched her toes into the ground there, furthering ripping the landmass apart.

After a few good stomps like that, she bent down and started devouring the pieces of the land itself. She ripped off the top of Mt. Fuji and savored it as a treat cool against her tongue.

‘This is how far I’ve come, where my body digests mountains.’

The thought filled Belle with joy. She laughed and her mirth carried across the countries she had just ravaged.

Surrender notices flooded in from those three countries she had just destroyed, along with the remaining areas of Asia she had yet to even touch.

‘Ah, what a wonderful thing it is to be me~’, though Belle.

‘But it could be even better.’

She looked down at her toes, zooming in as those airships of hers fanned out from the hoop-barracks and hangers on her ankles to help assess and control the situation below.

‘I could've done pretty much all of this on my own, after all. What do I even need people on the surface for.’

Belle giggled to herself as she came up with a fantastic idea then and there.