The grand, warded doors of the Aethelgard War Room sealed behind Kaelen's group with a soft, definitive thud, the sound a period at the end of his absolute declaration. The silence in the corridor outside was profound, broken only by the ragged, subconscious breaths of his companions as the last vestiges of that soul-crushing void faded from their senses.
They had felt only the echo, the faintest whisper of the precipice he had shown the council, and it had been enough to ice the blood in their veins. They looked at him now, not with fear of him, but with a dawning, terrifying awe for the burden he carried—the infinite, silent ocean of power he kept caged behind a dam of sheer will.
Kaelen did not pause. The moment the doors closed, he was moving, a figure of purpose cutting through the stunned silence. His mind, the consciousness of Kaito Tanaka now fully integrated and in command, was a whirlwind of activity. The quiet, soul-deep weariness of his past life was a grounding cord, a reminder of the stakes. He wasn't fighting for empires or gods; he was fighting for the right of people to have quiet, boring lives. For the simple hope of a tomorrow.
"Keijos," Kaelen's voice was calm, a stark contrast to the recent display. It was the voice of a project manager assessing a critical task list, albeit one that involved the fate of reality. "The council's compliance is now a high-probability variable. Their command structure, however, is inefficient. You will act as my liaison. I am streaming you a filtered data packet of primary strategic objectives. You will translate them into operational orders their military minds can process and ensure deployment begins within the hour."
A series of complex schematics, troop movement patterns, and resource allocation charts appeared in Keijos's mind through the Aegis Framework link. His eyes widened slightly, not at the volume, but at the chilling, flawless logic of it. It was a plan that considered every variable, from demonic mana signatures to the morale fatigue of conscripted soldiers. "Understood," Keijos said, his voice tight with focus. He immediately turned and headed back toward the war room, his mind already dissecting the overwhelming task.
"Alio, Drenos," Kaelen continued, not breaking stride as the group followed him through the halls. "The academy's primary and secondary armories are located on levels Beta-7 and Gamma-2. Standard-issue weaponry is insufficient against the bio-engineered chitin of the frontline drones. You will oversee the modification of all available munitions. The required elemental infusion patterns—a simple frost-alignment to brittleness—are being uploaded to you now. Utilize every enchanter, blacksmith, and rune-carver. Efficiency is critical."
Alio whistled softly as the data flooded his interface—complex runic sequences that were both elegant and brutally effective. "Aye, we can do that. Turn every sword into a can opener for these buggers." Drenos simply nodded, his large hands already twitching as if holding a hammer.
"Rei, Eline," Kaelen said, turning to the sisters. "Your control over atmospheric manipulation is now a strategic asset. You will not be on the front lines. You will be stationed at command outposts. I am giving you access to a wide-area sensory network I've established. You will use your magic to create localized weather fronts—dense fog to obscure enemy movements, targeted lightning storms to disrupt their lesser constructs, and freezing winds to slow advances. The coordination parameters are in your data stream."
The sisters shared a look of shock, then fierce determination. They were being elevated from combatants to force multipliers on a scale they'd never imagined. "We won't let you down," Eline said, her voice steady, while Rei's fingers were already tracing imaginary patterns in the air.
"Lydia," Kaelen's gaze fell on the healer. "Triage protocols will be overwhelmed. Your focus must shift from healing individuals to sustaining the army. I am transferring designs for area-of-effect mending wards and a recipe for a high-potency, mass-producible mana tonic. Organize the alchemy and healing departments. Your goal is to increase overall survival probability by 18.7 percent."
Lydia paled at the responsibility but squared her shoulders, the image of the mended gash on her arm fresh in her mind. If he trusted her with this, she would move mountains. "It will be done."
"Kaizar," Kaelen said, and the Dragonkin stiffened. "Your physical resilience is the highest in the group. You will lead the rapid response teams. I will feed you real-time data on breaches in the defensive line. Your task is to plug them. You are the hammer. Do not strategize; react. With extreme prejudice."
A savage grin finally broke through Kaizar's stunned expression. This was a language he understood. "Finally. A job that doesn't require thinking."
Kaelen's eyes finally settled on Shine. The others were given their tasks and moved off at a run, the academy's alarm bells now beginning to clang in earnest, signaling a move to full wartime readiness. He and Shine were alone in the suddenly chaotic corridor.
"Shine," he said, and for the first time, his voice lost its absolute clinical edge. It was quieter. Softer. "I have a different task for you."
She looked up at him, her silver eyes reflecting the flashing alarm lights. "Anything."
"You are the only one who understands the... paradox," he said, struggling for the word. "You see the weapon and the wielder. The others will follow orders because they have seen the power. The council will follow out of fear. But fear and blind obedience are unstable variables. They lead to mistakes, to hesitation."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. The contact was no longer just a data point; it was a connection. It was warm. "I need you to be my anchor. To be the voice that reminds them why we fight. Not for victory, but for preservation. You will move among the troops, among the commanders. You will be the face of this defense when I cannot be. Your presence will steady them. Your belief will be as important as any spell I cast."
Tears welled in Shine's eyes, not of fear, but of profound understanding. He was giving her the most important job of all: to be the heart of the army while he was its mind and fist. He was trusting her with the one thing that could truly fail—the spirit of their people.
"I will," she whispered, placing her hand over his. "I will be your voice."
He held her gaze for a moment longer, a silent conversation passing between them. Then, the moment broke. The logic engine re-engaged.
"Good. Now, I must go. The first wave will test our defenses at three key points. I need to be at the weakest one."
"Where?" Shine asked.
"The Sun-Scarred Plains."
And with that, he turned. He didn't run. He simply took a step, and the space around him warped. It wasn't a flashy teleportation spell. It was a simple, brutal re-folding of the distance between two points, a trick of physics he'd learned from a god of motion. One moment he was there, the next, the air where he'd stood was empty, leaving Shine alone in the hallway, the weight of a world's hope on her shoulders and the memory of his touch on her hand.
The Sun-Scarred Plains were anything but silent. The air, usually holding only the whisper of wind over golden grass, was now filled with a horrific, chittering roar. A rift, a bleeding wound in the world, pulsed with violent magenta energy on the horizon, disgorging a seemingly endless tide of creatures.
They were the drones. As tall as a man, with six barbed legs skittering over the earth, their bodies were a glossy, black chitinous armor. They had no discernible faces, only a single, massive compound eye that glowed with a mindless, hostile red light. Their claws could rend steel, and their numbers were their weapon—a swarm designed to overwhelm through sheer, horrific mass.
The defensive line here was a desperate affair. A hastily erected wall of earth magic, manned by a mix of Aethelgard students and soldiers from a nearby plains kingdom. Spells and arrows flew, striking down the front runners, but for every one that fell, three more scrambled over its body. The wall was buckling. The line would break in minutes.
Kaelen materialized on a small rise behind the crumbling defenses. He observed the situation for exactly 1.4 seconds.
It's just like the server crash during the fiscal year-end report, a part of him thought, the ghost of Kaito Tanaka surfacing. The tickets pour in, the system slows to a crawl, and everyone panics. The solution isn't to answer each ticket. It's to find the root cause and apply a patch.
He didn't summon his katanas. This didn't require a scalpel. It required a… system purge.
He raised a single hand toward the seething swarm. He didn't shout an incantation. He simply accessed his mana, the Limiter allowing a slightly larger trickle than usual to flow through the precise channel he demanded.
He didn't conjure a massive fireball or a lightning storm. That would be wasteful, like using a sledgehammer to push a button.
He combined two basic skills: Ignition and Absolute Stillness.
The air in a one-kilometer-wide arc in front of the defensive wall changed. It didn't heat up; it simply ceased to allow for molecular motion on a macroscopic scale. The Absolute Stillness created a zone of perfect, immovable cold. And then, within that frozen air, he triggered Ignition.
The result was not fire. It was Stasis Burn.
The leading edge of the drone swarm, thousands of creatures, simply… stopped. They were instantly flash-frozen into perfect, grotesque statues, their momentum halted absolutely. And then, a nanosecond later, from the inside out, every single one of them combusted with a silent, white flame. There was no sound, no shockwave—only a wave of light that turned them all to fine, black ash that settled on the frozen ground.
The wave of annihilation swept forward, erasing the swarm in a perfectly calculated, expanding semicircle. It stopped precisely at the edge of the rift, having cleared the entire field.
The effect lasted for ten seconds. Then the spell dissipated.
Silence returned to the Sun-Scarred Plains.
On the wall, a soldier lowered his bow, his hand trembling. A student mage simply sat down hard, staring at the field of ash that stretched to the horizon.
Kaelen lowered his hand. A notification flickered in his vision.
[+42,300 XP]
[Area Cleared.]
He turned away. The first ticket in the queue had been handled. The patch was applied.
He needed to check on the other two fronts. As he prepared to fold space again, he allowed himself one last, lingering thought, a whisper from the man he used to be.
I really hope they don't expect me to file a report on this.