The city began to burn in layers.
First the outskirts—warehouses, barracks, the brittle shell of military infrastructure that had been neglected for decades under the assumption that no enemy would ever stand here again.
Then the fires crept inward, leaping roof to roof as sparks rode the wind and found purchase among the dry timbers of overcrowded districts.
Smoke climbed into the sky in thick, oily columns, turning noon into a sickly twilight.
The Montenegrin guns however did not pause at the sight of the growing destruction before them.
Instead their guns continued to fire adjusting after every launched volley towards a new target.
Each battery fired according to schedule, the entirity of the Western part of Constantinople was targetted, everything within even remotely suspected of being a military target was blown to smithereens.
The targets themselves were scouted out weeks before.
Thanks to the summoning ability of Elias he had already summoned some spies who looked like born and bred Ottomans, spies who had entered the city before the siege, and could transmit the current state of the city from within.
Allowing for realtime target changes as if they had a satellite uplink trained on the city.
~
Inside Constantinople, the old rhythms of the city disintegrated.
Mosques filled, not for prayer, but for shelter.
Those that had basements crowed within them for shelter, while on the surface everything was destroyed.
Houses, Shops, even market stalls.
Nothing was spared from the unrelenting fury of the hailstorm of bombs endlessly falling from the sky.
Resistance continued to try and form up from within the city, as the knowledge of the straits loss filled their hearts with fear about retreat now being impossible.
Some men tried to rally in courtyards, shouting orders they barely understood themselves, only to scatter when shells landed nearby.
Others stripped off uniforms and vanished into the crowds, hoping anonymity would save them where allegiance could not.
Criminal gangs thrived in the collapse.
They broke into granaries, butchered pack animals in the streets, and looted homes whose owners had fled or been crushed beneath falling masonry.
The city's thin veneer of order—maintained for centuries by fear, ritual, and habit—peeled away in a matter of hours.
Fear not from the ruling sultan, but of the enemy bombarding them from outside the city, and from the raging criminals within.
The western city was falling into a complete and utter state of disarray.
Which would result in a near effortless invasion once the army breeched the city gates and began storming inside.
~
Inside his command center of Bar, hundreds of kilometers away from the battlefield Elias was watching the results of his army from both outside as well as inside the city.
His battle lines outside the city, continued to launch shell after shell over the ancient city walls into the streets of the capital itself, meanwhile closer to the walls, lines of his soldiers were advancing warrily, on edge for the possible attack from above by the Ottoman garrison forces.
Only step after step with the walls getting closer, aside from a single shot from above by a rifleman or sniper who hadnt been scared off they encountered no issues.
The men left behind in the trenches were quick to react.
Silencing any who dared poke their heads out from atop the walls.
The occasional cracking of rifles mixing in with the thunderous booms from the artillery pieces behind them.
~
But it wasnt limited to just this, Elias's gaze shifted again.
Getting a first hand view of his fleet which was in this very moment sailing its way up the Bosphorus strait.
Acting as a blockade cutting the famous Eurasian city in two.
Deck guns firing off at targets on both sides of the strait.
Assisting with the systematic devastation of the western city, while also preventing counter-attack from the eastern side.
If Elias had waited long enough to embed his spies into the Sultans palace itself he would be learning of his foe's great turmoil.
As word had arrived finally with responses from both the British and Russians.
Both informed there was nothing they could do, having no idea who it was who was attacking the Ottoman Empire at this time, while also citing that neither was in a position to assist at this time.
The siege of his beloved city had only been going on for a few days now and yet even still hope for victory was bleak at best.
The sultan could not issue orders to recall his army, as they were to far away and still engaged with the Russian armies, meanwhile reinforcements could not arrive either, since the enemy had blockaded the Strait and with the newly arrived news from the British had another fleet further south blockading passage through the Dardabekkes Strait.
Which meant the only help they could possibly receive would be from the black sea itself.
But the Russians were a hated enemy, their reply to this request for aid was half-hearted at best, most likely thinking it was a trick to postpone hostilities, until things were in their favor.
But the ottomans in fear of the Russian black sea's fleet had limited ships on their northern shores, certainly not enough to break the blockade, and ferry in much needed reinforcements.
This left the sultan feeling broken inside.
His enemy had his cornered.
His city was falling block by block before his eyes.
and his people who should resist till the bitter end in it's defence were already crowding outside his palace gates crying for him to surrender and stop the slaughter that was befalling them now.
In his heart he wanted to flee, let the city resist as long as it could while he their Sultan raise the forces required to reclaim this city and get his revenge on the bastards who dared to covet his nation and its capital.
The indecision of allowing for a surrender to take place resulted in even more of the city being destroyed, but it wasnt until a larger resoundedin Boom sounded out much closer than any others did the Sultans wavering heart finally change it's mind.
The city gates had been breeched, and the citizens were left defenceless.