Steel and Mana

From up here, standing on the Camelot, it looked almost like a game board. Or I was just because I thought about Seltana's ideas a bit more than usual.

In that moment, we were hovering straight above the point where Pion anchored the ships. The fact that the Guardian didn't react to their arrival, even as the Rook and the Seeker weren't camouflaged, was enough for me to trust Merlin's application to mask us and the rest of the army from the beast. On our side, the west-facing bank, our people moved like ants across the river, clearing the trees away and using them to build the battlements and everything we needed. For days, they dug, hammered, and raised or sank structures as required, while scouting units were on the other side, establishing traps, minefields, and sensor arrays, providing us with measurements all the way up to the beast's lair.

"Progress is steady, Sovereign," Oleg's voice came through the bridge receiver, while he was down on the surface, examining the dugouts for the artillery pieces. "The first redoubts are complete along the west bank. The shield pylons are being raised as we speak, but everything is linking up as planned. We also placed the ships at the marked locations, their broadsides angled to anticipate any response from the Guardian."

"Good," I answered, watching from above, "Don't be hasty about it. Make sure everything and everybody is ready, because we will have only one shot at this."

"Understood." He answered, cutting the signal.

While they were working down on the ground, I turned to head down to the engineering part of the Camelot, deciding to visit Merlin, who, if not working on overseeing the linked shield formations, was adjusting the Camelot's weaponry.

"How's my cannon, Merlin?" I asked, entering his room.

"Primed and prepared," He answered and didn't even look up at me, his eyes fixed on the formation he was working on, and it was clear he had redrawn it multiple times already. "I made sure it will have not only a proper punching effect, but it will also disrupt the Guardian's feeding attempt."

"I remember in your first report that you almost blew up my city... I give you permission to do the deed here."

"I already thought about it," He said while his fingers traced multiple sigils, drawing them midair while thinking and then adjusting the lines of the formation he was patching up, "I'm actually calculating the risks that come with it. That test was conducted with one core; this one has multiple cores in its grasp... So a chain reaction could be... Unprecedented."

"First time I see you this serious," I smirked faintly, but he just nodded.

"Yes, because this is an actual danger now... Haaah... Even I can sometimes be a grown-up. I am already a dad, no?" He finally looked at me, smiling, and I nodded and patted his shoulders.

"Yeah. You finally look like one, too."

"Anyway," He looked back at his drawing, "You'll only get one clean shot before it knows what's coming. After that, it will adapt... If it survives. I am doing my best to apply dampening spells to the short, energy-gathering phase. If it senses our weapon powering up, it could react, and we want to hit it while it is sleeping."

"Yeah, that is a good idea." I hummed, realizing what he was working on, "I don't plan on missing," I said simply, reading the formation he was drawing. "Do you plan on casting this dampening spell yourself?"

"Yes." He said firmly, "I wouldn't trust anything and anyone else to adapt as quickly as I can. By the time the fortifications are ready and we are about to start the hunt... I'll be ready too."

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A week of digging, hammering, and waiting had turned the riverbank into something unrecognizable. Where there had once been the overgrown wilderness, now there were trenches, filled with soldiers, numbering at least two hundred thousand. I never really asked for the exact numbers.

Then, there were the redoubts with more troops and rows of artillery, all aimed, primed, and ready for attack. As for the rest of the army, they were a bit further back, ready to reinforce us at a moment's notice... Or retreat to the secondary line if the situation looks like a lost cause. Scattered amongst our defenses, the shield pylons we had installed were dormant, waiting for the master signal to be activated, maintained by mages from all of our allies. Finally, at the far back, all the temporary hangars along the western bank were emptied out, the airplanes, all that we had, were lined up on the runway, ready to take off at a moment's notice.

As for the mechs, they were the main 'towers,' standing closest to the river, with most of their shoulders equipped with artillery weaponry, while their arms were either outfitted with mid-range or close-range weapons... And yet, for all that effort, or maybe because knowing what would happen in a few minutes, everything was silent. Luckily, all the noise we made while preparing, the Guardian hadn't moved to come and check it out.

With finishing everything... it meant that it was finally time. Waking up early, I knew that today would be it, as it was a clear day, with no excuses, no chance for clouds or a storm, for strong winds to complicate the assault. The weather would not be the thing to rob us of success.

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It has been a long time since I felt this type of knot in my stomach, but it was back. Like... waiting for the order for a march into enemy fire... Or into the mouth of a demon. I tried to get a feel for it, like before, sensing a monster or anything similar, but... the weird thing was, there was nothing. I was drawing a blank, which also left me unsure of the reason why. Why now? Not that it would change the decision and postpone the assault.

Sitting down in my chair aboard the Camelot's bridge, I gave the order, and the ship's massive frame began to slowly drift east, leaving the anchored fleet and the sprawling groundworks behind us. For the opening crescendo, we went alone to conduct it, and if we are lucky, it would be a one-time deal. I would be okay with it if all the effort we put into building the defensive lines was for nothing and we got killed with one shot.

Inside the bridge, the air was also taut, and even if everybody was trained and as used to fighting monsters as possible, they were still nervous. We all were, maybe even Merlin, too, who stood at my left, one hand holding a somewhat see-through book as he summoned the Artifact left to him by his first incarnation. I had hoped that it would provide some proof of its godly origin, as it was the best time to do so.

"Camouflage is stable." He said, his brows twitching a little, focusing on enveloping us in it on top of everything else. "I sense no trace of leaking... We can approach it more closely to ensure it has the least amount of time to react. The beast should feel nothing until the moment we fire."

"I intended to do that from the get-go," I said, my hand tightening on the armrest of my chair. "You heard him, Kustov, take us closer!"

Sasha, hovering near the gunnery officer's station, her eyes were fixed on the Imaginary feed, watching as the trees finally gave way to the entrance to the Third Pass... Seeing the beast up front, rather than in the images Pion recorded... It was a weird sensation. It looked even more enormous and dangerous. Still, I gulped my thoughts down and focused on the task at hand.

"Range?" I asked.

"Closing to four kilometers." Kustov answered at once, "four-point-eight… four-point-five."

"Should be enough." I raised a hand, signaling to stop.

"Holding steady... aligning," Sasha reported, and there was only a minimal shake in her voice. "Beginning to charge..."

The deck shuddered as the primary weapon came alive, a low vibration running through it while Merlin's focus became even greater. I could feel the gathering energy in my teeth, almost as if it were resonating with something in my bones, like a growing hum. It felt... bizarre. By now, Merlin was not even looking at anything particular; he was simply muttering under his breath, summoning a formation, rotating behind his back, doing his utmost best to mask the surge of power radiating from us, folding it in on itself for as long as possible.

"Two minutes to full capacity. The weapon core looks stable..." Sasha reported, "This will be the strongest shot we've ever used it for..."

"Let it be enough... Steady the ship," I answered, "Keep us level and on target."

No one spoke after that, and the only sounds were the thrum of Camelot's cores and the chanting of Merlin, who looked like he was in a trance, sweating like crazy.

Then on the Imaginary feed... I caught it... Just then... The Guardian's eyes cracked open. First, it was only one of the multiple, but... it did wake up. Did it sense us? It did... Because right after, the rest of its eyes began fluttering, looking like orange, multifaceted gems, and they turned in our direction. For a heartbeat, I thought we were too late, that it had felt us after all... There was no time to wait, because I began sensing his presence!

"Release!" I yelled and pressed the firing command ahead of time.

The Camelot's main gun flashed without any delay. It was a soundless moment, a light-speed lance of compressed rays, energy, and magical waves, ripping across the distance in the blink of an eye. It struck the web at its heart, piercing through one of the suspended cores before reaching the beast. Or at least... I hoped it did because we couldn't really see. The moment it hit the core, the Imaginary's feed exploded into color as the thing ruptured without any delay. Just as Merlin predicted, the energy overloaded it, as he was not monitoring it this time around and had not adjusted it...

Next was how the sky and the land had turned white, causing most of us to look away for multiple seconds before it died down enough to allow us to look at the image again. As the whiteness was gone, it gave way to not orange, as I expected, but to sapphire-blue fire. The explosion bloomed outward like a new sun was being made right before us. It spread out, the shockwave passing through us as the blue ball of fire continued to swallow the forest, flattening trees for a kilometer, then two, growing around the nest... before it suddenly stopped and began contracting.

It wasn't going away, though... it was acting strangely, as if it were falling backwards into a singular point, as if the fire were being swallowed by a black hole.

"Readings?" I spoke up, watching it all play out.

"Distorted..." Kustov answered, unsure.

"At least two cores reacted," Sasha added, also trying to make sense of it, while Merlin was breathing heavily, hurrying to recover himself.

"It survived..." He mumbled, and I was afraid of such news, because it reinforced what I was feeling.

As the fire was finally extinguished, and the dust settled into a swirling CC cloud above the surface... it was indeed still there. Its body was curled within a shimmering dome of violet light, a shield, strong enough to withstand our blast... Well, at least at first glance, but upon closer examination, the barrier had holes in it, with dozens of fractures, smoking coming from the Guardian's body... but it had held out enough to allow it to live. Counting, many of the suspended cores were gone, though, obliterated in the blast, but some still remained, glowing dimly, and connected to the shield it had erected.

"Bastard..." I cursed and ordered the ship to turn around, "Start retreating! Send the command to the artillery to commence bombardment immediately!"

As if sensing it, the Guardian uncoiled slowly, its serpent lower-body unwinding, its smoking tail slithering across the ruined land. Its spider-like legs landed in the CC cloud, swirling it like water, gathering it around its tips, while the wings on its back unfurled, stretching out like a cape... Followed by its mandible-like face, which opened up into a loud, angry roar.

Oh, it was angry... Very angry.

"Shields!" I yelled, and Merlin was already mumbling again, along with Sasha this time, because from the mouth of that monster, a beam of energy spewed out, heading straight our way...