《Time.Travel()》Chapter 152: Forward
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Oh. This is certainly...something.
To be honest, I'm a bit at a loss for words here. It's been a bit more than a day since I stopped the research on the space-bending shell, and things changed a lot during what was a surprisingly small amount of time. First of all, we found an ongoing battle between the Enforcers and the Empire.
At first, there was no clear victor. The Empire wasn't losing any ground, but it wasn't pushing the attackers back. On the other side, the Enforcers were sending waves after waves of mediocre troops to siege the Imperial outpost.
It didn't end well for them. However, this Coalition seems to have unlimited manpower... or just really stupid generals. Both of those options make sense considering what I know about Enforcers. Either way, the stalemate kept going for what must have been three hours.
Then, there was a change on the battlefield. It didn't come from the Enforcers and their prized elites wielding some grand Strategic Spell; the tide of battle was changed by the Empire. A group of heavily armored soldiers teleported at the edge of the barrier protecting the outpost.
The first thing that I noticed was the sheer amount of armor these Imperials were wearing. The elite troops we fought were already quite well-defended, but this was on another level. Each soldier was about eight foot tall, all covered head to toes in thick metal plates pulsing with powerful runes. Those massive suits of armor were not made of a steel-like material like the other elites, those had reddish reflections on their surfaces. I'm far from being an expert on magical materials, but it must be quite good if the Empire was hiding it until now.
The armored creatures raised their arms towards the lines of spear-wielding Enforcers charging at them. That's when it happened.
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I expected everything, from beam weapons to some impossible phenomenon like a lava cannon or something equally as outrageous.
But nothing could have prepared me for what came next.
The soldiers all loaded what looked like a rounded blue Magicite crystal into a slot in the left arm of their armor. Then they closed the chamber, and what looked like dozens of miniature pistons smashed into the crystal. The shockwave caused by the sudden compression sent a few wounded Enforcer troops flying. But that wasn't the impressive part, far from it.
A sudden beam of raw mana, almost identical to what comes out of an MH Shell despite being far weaker, erupted from the long cannon embedded into the forearm of the armor. The beams smashed into the Enforcers and reduced most of them to ashes. I can perfectly recall the groans of the few unlucky survivors; mostly because I Rewound this scene countless times to make sure that my eyes were not deceiving me.
However, after some more Rewinds of the same battle, I had to admit that I was witnessing a shift in how the Stonecrusher Empire envisioned battles. This version of their beam weapon is far from perfect. For one, it lacks the power of the last iteration with the rotating glass rods. It's also not very durable since a good chunk of the armor where the beam passes will crack and fall off after a few shots.
But still, this must be a lot cheaper to make, not to mention a hell of a lot faster. After all, this weapon is nothing more than a glorified hydraulic press welded to a tube. But still, this is unprecedented in the magical community as far as I know. Using cheap, disposable and ammo-using weapons is something only we did; until now that is.
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This is very worrying since the Empire has a lot more industrial capabilities than us. Not to mention that they have a lot more resources and a lot more researchers at their disposal. Our only saving grace is that they seem to still be stuck in the same line of thought, that 'magic must do everything.' Until they get rid of their bias, then their weapons will still be more expensive and complicated than our own.
I shudder just thinking about it as yet another instance of that fire volley plays in front of my eyes. If we let them, then the Empire might industrialize and advance to mass production of cheap, but effective, artifacts. If the Order, with their limited means, can achieve something like the Hammer then there's no reason that the Empire cannot come up with their own version of the concept.
Or even worse, something better.
We need to act faster than I first anticipated. We are bound to lose this war if we let the Empire modernize. I need to somehow escalate the conflict between the Enforcers and the Empire to make sure that the Stonecrushers are too busy fighting a massive war on multiple fronts to dedicate any time to research.
This war just got a lot more complicated...
I teleport next to Alan. The middle-aged man is busy looking over some kind of schematic on his desk, but he immediately raises his head once I arrive.
"Hey Alan, any news about the Imperial research lab?" I ask.
Alan tenses up, "Not really. The interrogations only gave us some partial information, and decoding the Imperial cipher is very slow since each Gate is encrypted with a unique code."
I nod, this is exactly what I didn't want to hear. Decrypting a magical cipher must be hard enough on its own, but a dozen of them? It's an almost impossible task for a large team, so it's just a pipe dream for us.
We need to choose a singular Gate and focus all our efforts on it. It's too bad that it's likely to take more than one day. Otherwise, I would have explored each one in different timelines.
"Do we have any leads then?" I say with a sigh. I'm starting to believe that we aren't going to get anything out of the raid on the Imperial lab.
"We do have some, but nothing conclusive," Alan says with a wry smile. "We somehow managed to get some coordinates, but nothing complete. I'm afraid that decrypting the rest of those coordinates is going to take a while."
I raise an eyebrow; having some coordinates is better than nothing. And getting the rest could be easy.
It would just be... time-consuming.
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The Guardian (The Legend of Little Red Riding Hood & Her Wolf)
Ever wonder what happened to Little Red Riding Hood after the big bad wolf ate her granny? Well, let's just say that was only the beginning. Somehow, those who know the Event got to calling me Little Red Riding Hood, a moniker I hate to this day. I was there. The blood; the smell—it still haunts my nightmares. A Timber Wolf killed my grandma. And then... a little cub saved me from the same fate. She became my best friend from that night on. That was years ago. This is now. Within a world of magic, mystery, and rich history: a man searches for purpose and freedom, a kingdom teeters on the brink of a hidden war destined to shake the foundations of the four worlds, and a common girl and her wolf remain at the heart of it all. Aria is doing her best to survive. Thrown into life with little more than a set of twin swords, a family who depends on her, and the memories of her father's teachings, she must scrape and scramble for enough to feed herself and her family. With a sister no healer can cure, a brother whose middle name is Trouble, and a Timber Wolf as a best friend—her life is far from tame. Will the life she yearns for ever be hers? Can she protect her family through what is coming? This is a book that will take you to the deepest, darkest parts of a girl's life and the highest mountains upon which she will, someday, stand. Join Aria as she fights for her kingdom, her family, and The High King. Plus, there's a pesky prince. And what's with all the ruckus about Prince Protector, anyhow? Edit 5/6/22: This was originally going to be one large volume... then the volume became too large. Going to split into two, with no cliffhanger at the end of Volume One, but with a few strings left untied. Then we shall begin the venture into Volume Two. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy!
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8 204The Journey of an Apprentice
The kingdom of Durnea is home to perhaps the largest of all the Great Towers, Draghiem. Within Draghiem's first floor rests Eisenrahm, the kingdom's capital city, and this is where our story begins. 17 year old Rygart Aren has dreamt of being the first to reach the top of Draghiem for as long as he can remember. Now that Rygart is confident in his ability he sets out to bring his dreams into reality! However, upon reaching his destination Rygart soon learns that dreams aren't near as much fun in reality as they are in the imagination. Just as Rygart is getting a grip on his new life things begin to change within Draghiem. Due the to actions of a careless adventurer events are set into motion that are sure to change the course of history, and not only for Durnea. Follow along as Rygart gets caught up in a storm of chaos that not only threatens to tear away his dreams, but also threatens the lives of everyone he cares about!
8 144The Prince's Penance
Dark times call for dark choices. My Choices. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, mine wasn't. However, Alex never made it to hell. Follow the story of a broken man as he pays the price for his sins in a new world. The cover is not owned by me.
8 185Icon of Paradise
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8 141Out With The Old, In With The New
Chloe, Lila, and Marinette have been best friends for as long as they can remember, but when Chole tells Mari that most of her "friends" are fake she didn't wanna believe, so she sends Lila to do an inside job and low and behold Chole was right.Drastic times call for drastic minutes right?Let's just see if everything will turn out all right.
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