Aether Engineering

Chapter 24

Grand Fort EastBlock

The Verith-Candis Railroad

Rufus Lance wasn’t surprised when he got a call from the acting general. He had been expecting the summons for some time. General Lorn was many things, but unpredictable was not one of them.

Rufus missed the days when Great General Ford, the unbreakable, had been in charge of Fort EastBlock. He had been far less predictable. Ever since his retirement, Rufus had been a little bored. He almost regretted giving his advice to the man. Still, it might have been worth it to see the duke’s anger.

The Great General was a man whose power was too great for even the duke to challenge. Still, with how far Ford had taken Rufus’ plan, the duke had nearly gone for him anyway. Rufus was in an especially precarious position. If it were up to the duke, he would have already been replaced, but fortunately, the tycoons in verith were far more reasonable.

Rufus took his time answering General Lorn’s summons. The man was technically his superior, so, Rufus couldn’t just ignore him, but at the same time, the general hadn’t earned enough respect for him to show up promptly.

Besides, it was hard to feel as though a message were urgent when you already knew its contents. Rufus’ men had informed him of the event hours earlier which was why he carried a travel bag along with him.

The whole business wasn’t nearly as important as the general likely thought it was. Sometimes the man needed to relax. Sure, the report had mentioned a powerful marble construct, but that didn’t mean the titan was declaring war on them or anything. Even if that was the case, its not like they would be anything to stop him.

When Rufus finally wandered into the briefing room, he was unsurprised to see the general speaking with at least ten different officers about some awful event or another. Rufus looked pointedly around the room as general Lorn took his time calling to him.

When he finally did, the man called out in the deepest, most gravelly voice Rufus had ever heard. “What are you looking for?”

Rufus smiled like a wolf might when a sheep had just stepped right in front of its mouth. “I was just looking for a mattress. I never seem to find you anywhere but here, so, I assumed that you sleep here.”

General Lorn ignored him, turning straight to the matter at hand. Rufus had a hard time believing it, but it almost seemed like the general didn’t like him. Rufus had no idea why that was. He was nothing but kind and generous to the poor general.

“I trust you already know about the unknown monster that broke through one of our checkpoints.”

The general was learning. Rufus was impressed. When he had first been starting out, the general had been surprised every time Rufus had known the details of a situation. It had been entertaining at first, but the game had eventually gone stale. Now, the man held no doubt that he was aware of the attack.

On reflection, Rufus realized that he might be drawing such a conclusion from the extremely obvious travel bag he carried over his shoulder. “I imagine that you would like me to track the beast down for you.”

General Lorn frowned slightly but nodded all the same. “Yeah. I want you to gain what information you can on it.”

There was something else going on with the general’s expression. He had something else he wanted to discuss. Something he couldn’t say around the others in the room. Rufus was surprised to draw a blank for a second before he remembered the report that he had been given.

It wasn’t something the general couldn’t say around the others, it was something the general couldn’t say around anyone. Rufus tried to give the poor general a reassuring look. He had no need to worry. Rufus was an impeccable servant; he had no need to be told something. He already knew it all. After all, that was the job of the minister of education.

…

The Voidlands outside of Hydrabridge

The heart of the Rork province

The Ivory Force silently sensed his way through the temporary camp. He could have simply killed the soldiers posted here, but that would be counterproductive. He had no reason to oppose their mission. In fact, he wanted them to succeed. That was why he was here in the first place.

His job today was to save these soldiers lives. One of his less agreeable associates in the organization had modified one of the constructs. When one of the soldiers tried to use it, the whole squad would be blown to bits.

His associate considered it to be a subtle method. If the soldiers’ deaths were caused by a malfunction, there would be an investigation team sent, not a team of reinforcements. The idea was to delay the province’s response to the bandits in the north.

The Ivory Force carefully pulled the construct from its place in the heart of the camp even as he monitored the surrounding area. There were very few arcaners who could match the range of senses that the ivory force possessed. This was rarely important.

Tonight happened to be a night when senses as good as his came in handy. As he stuffed the sabotaged construct into a bag he had brought for just that occasion, the ivory force felt an entity of solitary will sprint into the range of his senses.

As he silently left the camp behind to meet the being in combat, he took in its features. Bulky carapace covered the humanoid figure and great claws as long as swords hung at its sides from arms that remained still despite the creature’s high speed.

The Ivory Force began commuting more pure mana to bulk up the armor around him. The twin curved blades that he pulled from his sides seemed to appear out of nowhere, but he knew they had remained there the entire time. The blades were unadorned with runes. They didn’t need them. The blades were intended to act as catalysts for his techniques rather than additional weapons.

The creature was fast, but using a little force mana, the ivory force was still able to out speed it. The creature was strong, but his armor could withstand its blows. All in all, the monster was dangerous, but wasn’t a threat to him at least not while he knew it was coming.

Of course, that was the moment when it happened. Marble spikes pierced out from the monster with incredible speed and power, enough to be a noteworthy threat. The Ivory Force evoked waves of force using a technique. He didn’t just blast the pillars with a basic wave of it. Instead, he carefully hit the pillars from several directions at once, using less mana to break each pillar than he would have otherwise. The distinction was very important right now as the pillars didn’t stop after the first wave. They kept coming in a constant stream.

The Ivory Force moved forward with waves of force breaking the marble to pieces as fast as it could form. Behind him, he could hear the beginnings of stirrings within the camp along with shouts of alarm. That was bad. He may have been helping those men, but he knew that they would be just as likely to attack him as they would be to help him kill the monster.

It was fast becoming clear that this monster was no ordinary beast. The carapace that defended it was thick enough that even when he broke through the thick layer of pure mana protecting it, it took next to no damage. The only way to take it down would be piece by piece, applying forces from multiple directions at once to break a limb. With the marble attacks coming at him continuously, there was no time to muster such an attack.

Instead of continuing an assault, the Ivory Force backed away, focusing on defense and conserving mana. Already, the soldiers had arrived to watch the battle, but they seemed content to watch from a distance. That wouldn’t last for long.

Evoking air mana was usually not a good combat option. While it could spread over a large area with minimal mana use, it was not much more effective at attacking an enemy than normal air was. There was however one main advantage that air mana had over virtually every other type of mana. It could be used to sense the area around you in detail. It was for this reason that the Ivory Force began evoking large quantities of air mana.

Much of it was blown away by the force mana or displaced by the marble pillars, but even then, it allowed him to react to the onslaught faster then he could have with sight. The really interesting information came from the few bits of air mana that reached the monster. They showed that the creature was holding a stone of some kind, a construct from which the marble attacks came from.

As soon as he found the force, the Ivory Force renewed his assault, knocking the stone from the monster’s grasp and halting the marble attacks. From there, he slowly and meticulously broke through the creature’s thick defenses, launching carefully placed blasts of force from each angle.

As they saw the creature fall, the soldiers came rushing towards him. By the time they reached the site of the battle though, the Ivory Force was already gone.