Read up to 15 chapters ahead on Patreon - patreon.com/Light_lord
-----
The news that Godzilla had attacked nuclear power plants across Europe tore through the world like wildfire, sowing panic from the White House to war rooms in Beijing and Moscow.
Every nation scrambled for answers.
Then came a glimmer of relief.
Monarch's deep-sea monitoring confirmed that after his devastating attack on the plant in France, Godzilla returned to his lair in the Bermuda Sea.
There, his colossal form lay dormant, the ocean calm around him, at least for now.
No signs of movement, no new assaults.
The reprieve was short-lived.
-------------
California, St. Argo Naval Base – Pacific Fleet Headquarters
Situated along the southern rim of St. Argo Bay, the sprawling base was a fortress of American naval power.
Aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines lined its docks, the heart of the Pacific Fleet's operations.
Since the declaration of Level Two combat readiness, the base had been a hive of activity, patrols doubled, air wings fueled, weapons loaded.
Warships once stationed overseas had returned, forming a steel barrier against any threat from the Pacific.
It was a perfect California morning. Sunlight glittered on the water.
Seagulls wheeled over the harbor.
Then the sky broke.
"Rumble…"
A low growl of thunder rolled across the horizon.
The sailors glanced up from their duties, puzzled.
"What the hell? There wasn't a storm on the forecast," one petty officer muttered.
"It's San Argo," another shrugged.
"The forecast here is about as reliable as my ex-wife."
But the clouds didn't just gather; they exploded.
In less than a minute, the sun vanished behind a churning wall of black.
"Whoa, look at that!"
From the north, a colossal thunderstorm advanced with impossible speed, swallowing the sky.
Forks of golden lightning split the darkness, their glow staining the ocean scarlet.
The air smelled of ozone and burning metal.
A young ensign froze, his gaze locked upward.
"Tell me I'm not seeing this… I swear, there's something in the clouds."
Up in the roiling storm, a shape moved.
It wasn't an aircraft.
It wasn't a bird.
A massive, silver-white dragon soared among the lightning, its wings spread wide enough to eclipse the last fading sliver of daylight.
Each beat of those wings sent shockwaves rippling through the clouds, golden light flashing off scale and claw.
Its eyes blazed like molten silver, its gaze fixed on the base below.
"That's… oh my God… that's HIM!"
"Dragon King, Miraluz!!"
The cry spread through the base like wildfire.
Sailors dropped what they were doing, scrambling for weapons, for shelter, for orders that could not possibly save them.
"He's here for us, he's here to finish what he started!"
The base sirens screamed, the wailing alarm cutting through the storm. Loudspeakers barked orders:
"All hands to battle stations! All aircraft to scramble! Prepare the carrier strike groups for immediate launch!"
Three carrier battle groups, the pride of the Pacific Fleet, moved into position.
Deck crews rushed to arm F/A-18s and F-35s, ordnance teams loading missiles by the dozen.
Helicopters whirled to life.
Destroyers swung their guns toward the darkening horizon.
The storm answered with its voice.
A sudden, bone-shaking crackle tore through the air.
Zzzzzzttt,!
From the heart of the thundercloud, an invisible pulse exploded outward.
Every radar screen, every comms terminal, every control system in its path went white, then black.
In the control tower, a radar operator's headset screeched with static.
"We've lost tracking! All systems, repeat, all systems, are down!"
"This isn't possible," a lieutenant growled, flipping through dead displays.
"We've got hardened electronics, "
"It's an EMP!" another voice shouted.
"EMP! Massive one!"
The base commander slammed a fist onto the table.
"Get backup systems online! Now!"
"It's no use, sir," a tech specialist said, pale-faced.
"The shielding's fried. He's… he's overloading even our fail-safes."
On the flight deck, pilots cursed as their controls went dead mid-taxi.
One by one, the jets lost power.
The unlucky few already airborne weren't just flying blind; they were falling.
"Mayday, mayday, we've lost all avionics."
The transmission cut off in a shriek of static.
From the carrier deck, crew members watched in horror as an F/A-18 spiraled downward, its pilot unable to eject.
The jet slammed into the bay in a column of water and flame.
Others followed, their sleek forms plunging helplessly into the ocean.
The helicopters fared no better.
Rotors slowed, then locked, the aircraft tumbling like toys into the sea.
On the carriers themselves, sparks cascaded from open panels.
Consoles smoked.
The CICs went dark, the giant combat information screens lifeless.
Crews grabbed fire extinguishers, but without functioning pumps, even firefighting systems faltered.
In the destroyers and frigates, the story was the same: navigation, weapons, radar, all dead.
The once-mighty strike groups sat motionless, blind and deaf in the water.
The harbor lights winked out.
The base descended into absolute blackness.
For the first time in its history, the St. Argo Naval Base was powerless.
And above them, silhouetted against the crimson lightning, Miraluz circled once, wings stretched to their full, terrible span.
The world had just watched the lights of an entire naval superpower wink out in an instant.
The electromagnetic pulse, no ordinary blast, but the newly perfected Level 2 EMP subgene from the MUTOs, rolled across St. Argo like an invisible tidal wave.
Every frequency, every wavelength was sharpened to perfection.
The pulse didn't just fry circuits, it reached into them, doubling its destructive resonance until even shielded systems collapsed in cascades of burning plastic and shrapnel.
The coverage was vast, tens of thousands of square kilometers, reaching far beyond the base and deep into the city itself.
Power grids failed, satellites lost contact, and air traffic over California vanished from every radar in North America.
To humanity, the modern battlefield had just been rewound a century. No drones.
No missiles. No comms. No hope.
From the control bunker beneath the base, Rear Admiral Fletcher gripped the cold metal railing and stared at the darkened operations room.
His voice was hoarse.
"God help us… We're fighting a war from the Stone Age."
Up above, the storm split open with a thunderclap.