Steel and Mana

A day after the first ambush we faced, besides the pontoon bridge we built, the frame of an actual one was already in the making. About two hundred workers and engineers were buzzing around it, making sure that it would be done as fast as possible, but without sacrificing quality. When the bulk of Avalon and Ishillia gets through, we will keep moving eastward, while the rest will also be tasked with following us and building two extended encampments on either side to make sure the line behind the main army is not broken.

They would house not only the garrison but also serve as the first supply depot, where trains could stop, refuel, or be repaired before heading either to Markoth or back out into the east. Maybe even put an airfield down... but that's for the future. For now, I had to keep my brain focused on the present.

"How long until we finish the bridge?" I asked, coming to the bridge of the Camelot, looking at Kustov, who quickly saluted me.

"They should be done in two more days, a week until it gets reinforced, and then a second passing added to make it connect to the railway coming up behind us. Once that is done, the train can proceed without much issue in the future. Should we leave some of our troops behind, my Sovereign?"

"No." I shook my head, "We need every soldier at the front; the backlines can handle it. Merlin is also studying the bastards, and we got a live one. He said he will have something for me soon, and he never failed to deliver in the past."

"Understood."

While speaking, I turned towards the projected image of the world and looked down again. All around the construction site, my soldiers were spread out, vigilant, watching the water, while up and downstream, two mechs stood in the water, submerged up to their waists, standing like wavebreakers.

"Most of our halftracks had finished the crossing already," Kustov continued his report, standing beside me, "Our troops are mostly done and ready, standing in formation for your orders. Talking with Lucca, he said that Mirian's people will probably take a day or two to follow suit."

"Keep them moving," I nodded, "We can't get stuck or delayed just because of one minor engagement."

"Sovereign," Merlin's voice called through the comms, "I have something to read to show you."

"On my way." I answered, already turning around and heading down into the belly of the Camelot, where Merlin's 'little' laboratory was.

Arriving, the inside reeked of fish, which wasn't strange, as there were four dissected beasts on a long table, while a fifth was lying there, tied down, sometimes flinching, its eyes moving back and forth between us.

"How smart are they?" I asked before he could start to speak, coming closer to the live one and... Weirdly... When our eyes locked, I could feel something coming off it. It wasn't intellect, or magic... I don't think so, at least. But it was... not thoughts either... but... feelings? It was afraid...

"Good question," He hummed, crossing his hands, looking at me, "I would put it around... A chicken? At best. I don't have many tests done on that end, but these small ones are certainly more dangerous than the big ones. Without a core, the magic in them doesn't override their thoughts."

"Mhm." I nodded, straightening up, "So? What do you have for me?"

"Here," He pulled off his protective goggles with a snap and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, managing to smear the blood all around his face, turning himself into some mad scientist from some horror movie. "They have a pretty cool kind of camouflage!"

"Yeah, we noticed that," I frowned, "When underwater they are impossible to spot, right until they breach the surface..."

"They are not just hard to spot," Merlin began, already reaching for a rod with a pebble-sized CC sitting at the end of it. He pressed it to the bound beast's body, muttering a spell under his breath. A faint shimmer rose from the tip as a miniature formation came to life, then fizzled away like smoke. "They scatter the spells. Of course, strong and killing ones are too powerful for them to do so... But simple waves that we use for scanning and detection? No problem! They don't even need to focus on it, their running blood does it."

"So if we amplify our sensors, can we detect them?" I leaned closer, watching. He repeated the test on one of the dead ones in the meantime, which was no longer able to repeat the thing, meaning they had to be alive for it to work.

"In theory, yes, but it would hamper our end, too... We would need a complete redesign of what we have for it to work and remain stable." He mumbled, "I think it's better if we establish pulse-towers that periodically scan with a stronger wave, like what you told me about... sonar, was it?"

"Mhm." I nodded, crossing my arms, "We can do that and put them on here for the troops that stay behind. If it works."

"It should... I made sure to get to the bottom of it!" He smiled at me and with blood on his face and hands... he was indeed like a shorty serial killer, "They dampen their own signatures," he continued the explanation, even more excitement creeping into his voice, "They are like a ship painted totally black to vanish into the night!" His eyes gleamed as he pointed at the living one. "Their shells are made of layered cartilage, which lets their blood flow through it and excites the magic in it. When it flows through them and an outside source hits it, it scatters and gets broken up into a thousand useless signals. I can't confirm it, but it may also help them feel the presence of their enemies without betraying their own location. The main point is that our magical sensors don't register them because of it. To us, they vanish into background noise."

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"The bastard invented stealth technology before me," I joked, shaking my head, "Like having radar-absorbent materials as skin... Except here it's magic instead of radio waves. I should have thought of it earlier..."

"Wait..." Merlin pouted, "You knew about this?"

"I know about a similar principle, not precisely or exactly this..."

"Oooo... Unfair... I hoped I discovered something that makes you go: Whoa..." Merlin grumbled, almost as if he was sulking, "Eh, no matter! Anyway, the conclusion is that they have organically built jammers. It's not silencing magic like our Trojan spells, it's more ike distortion and thus, if you don't look for it, you won't even notice it. They bend the magical field until nothing clean comes back, and I think it is a mechanism they developed to make themselves invisible to the senses of the big ones. They may be small, but they do have magic in them, even if not an actual core."

"Could be..." I stepped back, rubbing my chin while thinking. We were caught off guard this time around because we trusted the instruments we came up with, not even entertaining the idea that they could outmaneuver it. Haaah... "So... If they can do this…" I said slowly, glancing at Merlin, knowing he still had more for me, "…we can too...?"

"Yup! You do know me~!" Merlin grinned like a lunatic again, bringing me over to a notebook that was filled with sketches and drawings along with blood-smeared patches, "Now, if you look at this... If we can replicate this structure..." He explained, flicking a few pages, "I don't even need to run blood through our mechs."

"You wanted to do that?" I grunted, shaking my head, thinking what kind of abomination would that look like... straight out of some body horror movie.

"I considered it, but it is a stupid idea," He nodded without shying away from it. "Where would we get the blood from? I mean, constantly getting it... that is a waste! And even if we bottle every monster we kill, then it becomes a nightmare for containing it, storing it, delivering it, and I could go on... It is already a stress with our soldiers' supplies of blood tattoos... adding more to it? Bah. No."

"My ministers would probably flay you alive, yes... putting that much more on their backs..."

"It would have needed a new department!" He waved a hand, showing me a different blueprint, "Anyway, I managed to come up with a replicated spell that we can tack on to anybody or anything we want. It is a much better version, too, because it doesn't need a secondary medium like water to work flawlessly. Imagine it, Leon! If I am right, we could march undetected... I mean, undetected by the senses of the monsters. They would still see us and hear us, but they wouldn't pick up on the mechs' or the airships' cores."

That is a great idea. And it wouldn't bring too much stress on our machines either.

"Details?" I asked, waiting for him to continue.

"The structure is simple in concept. It doesn't even need that big of a change, either. The biggest giveaway is our emissions, coming from the cores of our machines. We can layer them, effectively giving them a shield so the emitted waves don't get to the noses of the monsters. It is pretty simple, although we will no longer be able to fish like we did with the worm after that."

"Not that big of a drawback." I chuckled, but more because it is weird how something so simple and so logical wouldn't occur to any of us before... Well, it is better late than never.

"Also," he continued, "It wouldn't make us invisible, of course, not to the eye. It would mask our signatures, and putting them on the outside would also help scatter any random pings we receive. I also don't know how powerful a wave stronger monsters can release... So a concentrated search may reveal us still."

"There is only one issue." I raised a finger as I exhaled slowly. Part of me was thrilled at the thought that true stealth against monsters would be a great advantage. We may even hide the crossing points, effectively making the Passes disappear, if we can hide the drawing effect of the Gods' Formations... but that is for the future. Still... An idea I can file away in my mind to revisit later. "Merlin," I said, my voice warning him, "if we succeed, we're not just hiding from monsters. We'll be hiding from each other."

"I am working on that problem," he said, shrugging. "We could create receivers and signalers, on par with the sonar system I talked about. It would be one method... But I am still working on more, better ones..."

Typical Merlin answer, which made me chuckle, shaking my head. In the meantime, I turned my gaze back to the live creature. It stared at me still, unblinking, body trembling... It wasn't intelligent, not truly, but it knew fear... And I could still feel it. I wondered what kind of predators lurked deeper in the rivers of their homeland that even these killers needed to hide from... How big would they be? If I go by the dinosaurs... fuuuuck meeee... I just hoped that Pion and the rest were fine. Suddenly, I wish I had sent more ships and mechs with them.

"Okay," I let out a long breath. "How long until you can prototype something?"

"Hmmm..." Merlin tapped his chin, "Days, if I focus. Weeks, if I want it field-ready. I'll need active testing, enough CC to work with, and volunteers who can be borrowed from the engineering department. Maybe even one mech to experiment with. Better to test on machines before the airships."

"Fine," I sighed, "Take what you need, but keep it reasonable! Also... keep it on the Top Secret shelf. If word spreads too far, the Union will demand a share before we even know if it works."

"Like we would give them this one..." Merlin smirked. "I mean, giving them straight away... Anyway... And if it does work?"

"Then we will have the advantage of ambushing them in their nests."

"Hehehe!" He laughed, shaking his head as he turned back to his dissected prize. "That would be a pretty nice thing to have..."

"What will you do with this one?" I pointed at the live one.

"I was thinking of roasting it." He answered nonchalantly.

"Save me a bite." I murmured, turning away from the thing, "I am also curious how it tastes. Call it... payback."