Steel and Mana

The march towards the north in the beast-infected land had come into its seventh day, and the unnatural silence had become something alarming. No matter what, it was something that neither Pion nor any of the other Avalonian soldiers had expected. No monster packs were coming from the underbrush; no distant, unnatural howls echoed through the forest. It was just... silence, and the crack of twigs as they walked over them... and the crunch when the mechs tore down the trees with every stem they took, after being signaled to catch up with the ground troops. Whatever was causing this anomaly... was making Pion's senses warn him to turn around. Monsters do not vanish like this... Even if the land is void of CC to eat and harvest, there should be a sign of their being here, left on the land as they marched through it.

Whatever the case was, they would find it, so their column moved at a well-kept pace, always a few kilometers ahead of the mechs. Simply by their sizes, it was impossible to use them for stealth, not to mention amidst the thick forest. Every move they made caused trees to be snapped and torn down, not exactly a silent and sneaky behavior.

So, it was agreed that the ground units would sweep the perimeter. When the Seeker confirmed that there was nothing, they moved up, block by block, cutting a straight line towards the north from the point where they disembarked from the ships. It was also another point that made them know things were not normal... even with this basic arrangement, the beasts should still hear or at least sense them, come to investigate the source of the noise. Yet, not one has tried to hunt them down for a week now.

"Contact!" a voice broke the silence, coming through every helmet's receiver.

"Report!" Pion snapped as he recognized the owner of it, coming from the leader of the five-man team he sent ahead as the spearhead of their march.

"We reached... the signal's source... but you should see this for yourself, Commodore... This is bad."

When Pion made his way, arriving half an hour later, he said nothing... He couldn't. At first glance, he also thought that it was a clearing, just an open space, perhaps natural, maybe not, caused by a battle, a fire, or anything else... Whatever the reason was behind it, it became evident after scanning it from edge to edge that it was way too perfect. It was such a round circle that it had to be unnatural. Not to mention, everything on the clearing was erased from existence. Trees? Gone. Grass? No sight of green, as if it was cut off at the edge of the treeline. What remained was just the unnaturally flat, homogenous, black ground, like... ash. He forbade anyone from stepping on it... It was... unsafe.

But this was not the biggest problem. That... thing... was the issue, right in the middle of the clearing, the source of the signal Nathel was noticing.

At the very center of that barren circle was a nest, but unlike the ones Pion had seen before. It was better to be called a spider's web. It was a multi-layered gemoteric form, made of silk cables thicker than tree trunks, attached to the clearing's western and eastern edges, like a net, cutting it in half.

"It is a trap..." some of the scouts whispered, even in their helmets, reporting to Pion, "Behind it all... There is the opening to the Third Pass, Commodore... But a monster built its own home right at its mouth..."

"The perfect feeding ground..." Pion muttered, wanting to curse, because of what he was seeing, as caught in that web were monsters. A lot of monsters.

There were corpses there that looked mummified, and more bones on the ground below them, who knows how many, smaller beasts' remains from... maybe even decades ago. What made it even worse was the fact that multiple of the captured beasts were giants in their own right, thirty to forty meters tall, creatures that should have their own nests and their own little following of minions feeding them. As they watched, some still twitched faintly, legs spasming as their blood seeped away, but not onto the ground, but flowing along the webs, guided by... magic. Those that were dead still looked fresh, their chests being torn open, their cores pulled out and suspended in multiple strands of silk. Around them, the web pulsed with audible thrums, like a heartbeat, connecting the cores into the body of the abomination at the heart of this hellish... web.

It was enormous...

It had a serpent's lower body, coiled around itself, its entire being looking almost weightless, not even making a dent in the web on which it was resting. Around its actual, who-knows-how-long body, its scales were white, snow-like, allowing the shifting muscles beneath to be visible when they moved with constant, subconscious ripples, in tandem with the thrumming sound everyone was hearing. But, it wasn't just a big snake... From its midsection sprouted multiple, jointed legs, akin to a spider or a crab. Almost all of them were stuck in a corpse, and Pion could swear it used them as straws, slurping the blood out... And that was not all. Folded across its back, there were visible, elongated wings, feathered and twitching faintly in a half-dream. To their luck, the creature was in a deep slumber, probably focusing on eating and consuming the cores it had harvested throughout the winter...

As for hunting, or from those who tried to cross over... It had to be the latter... And it had to be a tide, because many of the captured beasts looked fresh, as if ready to hop off and walk again... with a hole in their chests.

"Sovereign preserve us..." Someone gulped, showing that even Avalon's best could sometimes feel fear...

And even Leon wouldn't blame them. The beast's head alone was larger than the Rook's whole body stacked twice on itself. There were mandibles attached to its jaw, each looking like silvery scythes, while its eyes, dozens of them, were closed but sometimes fluttering as it dreamt of... who knows what. If it was sleeping... Most likely, it was feeding, suspended in a catatonic state as the web siphoned the power of dozens of cores, along with the monsters' blood, into its gigantic body, which was easily over a hundred and twenty meters long... uncoiled.

Pion watched the abomination through the feed of his helm. He measured its length, trying to obtain proper dimensions, even though it was impossible to do so in its current state. Then, he studied the web, the trapped monsters, the glow of cores being syphoned of their magic in some way... Now it was evident. The silence of the forest, the lack of monsters for days, the empty land, all of it was because not even beasts wanted to stay close to something like this demon. Every lesser creature had already been devoured, harvested, maybe even dragged here to be butchered. This thing, throughout decades of uninterrupted feeding... had grown into something that could destroy the world as Pion knew it.

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It has been almost a month since we merged with the Khan's troops and continued eastward. Currently, behind us lies a straight lane, extending from the Second Pass to our current position. It is an actual railway trail with multiple, smaller fortresses between temporary stations, ensuring that supplies can reach us and also maintaining a relay network between us and the second half of the army, which was responsible for maintaining its security.

As for the bulk of the army, the pattern of our march has become almost comforting. We were constantly using the sonar pings to reveal the lurking packs around us, sweep them toward waiting kill zones, and the mechs finished them off. A perfect and comfortable rhythm of extermination.

Still, it gave me something to think about... How long until the beasts adapt?

We've learned a great deal about them, just in these past weeks. The small ones actually panic at the moment we ping them, fleeing straight into our traps. The larger ones, the ones with a well-established core, are bolder. Probably more hungry... When we ping them, they come to check out the source and only retreat when they feel the overwhelming strength of the army with the airships and mechs... Luckily, Merlin was constantly adapting our camouflage to our machines, so we managed to lure them all in and finish them off multiple times. It was working so well that the Khan already joked about this being the easiest campaign of his life...

I bet he jinxed us.

Which meant that our minimal losses were the indication that something else was waiting for us to cash in the debt we owed. Or some bullshit like that.

Speaking of losses, most of those were coming from the second army, from behind us. As more and more points were established and manned by them, I was forced to start leaving some of my soldiers and artillery units behind. I chose from those who were the newest recruits amongst my ranks, with a few Ishillian and Khulman troops for extra measure. The roaming beasts had already tested them multiple times, usually with night raids, becoming much braver after the bulk of our soldiers moved away from them. There was even a time when they assailed the supply train, but got torn apart by its mass, tangled under it... We even had a derail because of it, but nothing major. Still, I know better than to believe in perfect defenses, so I had to delegate people to command key posts amongst the ones we built.

"I got more news," Sasha brought me one such report right this morning, making me moan a little, still just about to raise my first coffee of the day to my lips. "There were two attacks in the rear," she continued, unbothered, tapping the marks on the map on the table, "One on the third fortress, one on the rail camp two marks after it."

"It has been some weeks since they attacked a point that far back."

"Yeah..." She nodded, thinking, "It wasn't a big attack this time either. The casualties were minimal, and repairs are already underway. Maybe we should leave behind some of the new cores we gained from the monsters we killed."

"And lure big ones in?"

"Not necessarily," She countered my question, "Remember... back when we defended the Pass, many times at the start we killed a big monster, and it stopped the small ones from coming through anymore, giving us a calm winter. It could very well be the case here, as most attacks we face in the back are from the small variants."

"We can try... but for that, we will have to send back a mech or two to oversee the operation."

She only nodded, already presenting me with a plan that she had worked out exactly for this reason, but still, we can't pause to secure every span of track, not with the Third Pass still open. We have to find and seal that before winter, and the rest becomes manageable. Fail to seal it, and the whole effort is a wasted gesture as their ranks will be replenished without stopping...

And that is where we come to our latest target: The border crossing city of Horringar. It was part of the old Markothian kingdom and had grown from a fortress into a city, built to guard against its former neighbors: Airosia. After passing through it, we should be nearing the Third Pass and maybe even link up with Pion's forces...

But first, I had to focus on the task at hand. I had already sent the planes forward for multiple scouting missions, equipped to take images and show them to us. The city itself was built on a large hill, behind a fast-flowing river. There were about half a dozen bridges there in the past; now, there are none.

From the point of view of my planes, what we could see were two layers of stone walls, surprisingly intact towers on the second layer, whole, undamaged barracks behind it, and a high, first wall that was destroyed in some places. However, we could even see rebuilding efforts and patchwork on the holes. Someone fixed it... multiple times at that. Yes, it was no longer pristine, and what's left of it was littered with broken battlements, collapsed sections... but it was a sign that this place lasted surprisingly long enough.

So, after multiple flybys and us coming close for a bombardment, it was time to decide how to handle it.

"Looks relatively empty," Kustov said when we were meeting in the command chamber above the Camelot.

"Empty," Oleg repeated, staring at the images, "Or a trap."

"I don't know," Merlin, leaning on the table, pointed at the images, "I can't see the telling signs of a monster lair. So far, they had transformed all the cities and towns they took over. Why not do the same here? The parts behind the second wall still look intact. That's... weird."

"It does look weird..." Mirian nodded, "Exactly my thought... And anything strange is the beasts' territory. Burn it."

"And waste resources?" The Khan seemed amused, crossing his arms, "You plan to bomb empty stones?" he asked, already using words he heard for the first time, adapting to our style of warfare surprisingly easily.

"Better to shell the whole ruin into the ground than send soldiers in and bleed good men in CQB," I answered, agreeing with Mirian.

"Close-quarter battle..." The Khan murmured, making me smile, and he just grinned, knowing I was simply testing him as I dropped this word yesterday... but he caught on already.

The man was a sponge when it came to combat-related information. I can see where Seltana's proficiency came from. Tula-Khan Rhanak may look like a meathead, speak like one, and act like one... but he is scary smart and adaptive. He had already incorporated the necessary movements into his own troop, making them compatible with the artillery's range and the capabilities of his mechs. He even began enforcing the change to the measurements I introduced... One time, he used the planes' path for scouting and to distract monsters with the noise their engines made.

Yet, he made no requests... Yet. But I knew he would. When he learned Jila's position, piloting a mech, he didn't react. But he was gone for almost a day before appearing before me again. His questions had changed then, all related to the mechs and their power, details, capabilities, anything that came to mind. As for Jila, since that day, I never once heard him utter her name. Or even acknowledge her presence whenever a mission included her.

I was glad to ignore the 'issue' as well... Let it be a problem after there are no more monsters... For now... we need to kill monsters.