Kaelen was soon joined by his right-hand man, Gorok. Kaelen studied Gorok’s face intently, searching for any lingering signs of last night’s insidious manipulation.
Gorok instinctively wanted to avoid Kaelen’s gaze, the shame of his actions from the night before burning within him. He remembered his eagerness, his foolish desire to showcase his lord’s strength and force the Empire to recognize their mistake. His mind had been so easily drawn into that dreamland, where his ambitious goals felt not just believable, but effortlessly achievable.
"It’s good to see you back," Kaelen said, his voice flat as he pulled out a sealed letter.
Gorok bowed, accepting the letter. "Make sure this reaches Vellok. Tell him we have no time. In battle against the Abyss, one must push out all their cards before it’s too late." Kaelen’s eyes hardened, a fierce resolve burning within them. "Give him my word: once he agrees to my suggestion and sends reinforcements to fill our numbers, we will step into the Abyss within one month." Gorok opened his mouth, a protest or question forming, but seeing the unyielding look on Kaelen’s face, he merely bowed again, transformed into a swift bird, and soared into the sky.
Once activated, Kaelen’s tech core thrust him into a state of absolute rationality. He disliked it; he preferred the nuanced deductions of his own mind, but the current situation demanded cold, hard logic. His army had one critical weakness: the incessant psychic and mental assaults stemming from the corrupted land. Individually, the Abyss demons were formidable, but this was war, and his forces’ cooperation made them stronger, more effective in battling the monstrous tide.
Unlike the Abyss’s seemingly endless supply of low-tier demons, the current battlefield was no longer viable for such weak creatures. This necessitated the deployment of mid-tier demons, those at the third and fourth stages of power. Unless Vorenza planned a "feast of carnival" where demons cannibalized each other for strength there was no feasible way for her current army to rapidly replenish large numbers of these mid-tier demons.
It was an equal fight, a brutal, grinding stalemate, but the constant psychic attacks were slowly, insidiously tipping the scales, making the conflict seem increasingly one-sided. Kaelen’s thoughts then raced to the two remaining sixth-tier mages. He doubted they’d risk themselves again by erecting another psychic barrier, especially after Vorenza’s cunning deception.
Vorenza had clearly shown her ability to exploit this vulnerability, and Kaelen desperately needed his mages in their top condition. As for the strange attack that had seized control of his men, Kaelen was completely in the dark. He’d been so close to a lead, his constructs almost pinpointing the source, but whatever it was either knew he was near or he’d simply been unlucky; the unknown entity had accomplished its goal and vanished.
Kaelen’s eyeballs darted rapidly in his skull, calculations racing through his mind. Given they were battling against demons, it might have been some kind of unknown demonic ability. But the unsettling precision, the sheer breadth of its effect, pointed elsewhere.
Could it be the gods who came along with the demons? The chances were high. These entities had consistently demonstrated an almost perfect concealment, only revealing themselves when they chose to. Kaelen’s internal calculations increasingly favored this theory. The attack had been too sudden, too seamless; there were no tell-tale fluctuations that typically preceded a magical assault. It was as if a hidden command had simply been whispered, and his men had instantly fallen under its absolute control.
Kaelen landed abruptly in front of his tent, his resolve hardening. He decided he was no longer going to wait for Vellok. He had to take matters into his own hands. He wanted to survive, he needed to survive; he couldn’t leave his fate to someone who wasn’t in imminent danger of dying at any second.
His massive consciousness swept across the now tattered fortress, slicing through the lingering psychic static, and locked onto Rattan. "Meet me in my tent," Kaelen’s voice resonated directly within Rattan’s mind, "and come with your armor blueprint for the ratfolk."
It took Rattan only a few minutes to return to Kaelen’s tent. The moment he stepped inside and saw Kaelen’s current state—strained and focused—he immediately bowed, understanding it was best to keep his presence as unassuming as possible.
It seemed the recent psychic assault was far from something Kaelen was taking lightly. As Rattan made his way through the fortress, the distress he witnessed among the goblin and ogre soldiers filled him with a quiet, fierce joy. These high and mighty creatures, no longer shielded by the Empire’s comforting layers of safety, were now experiencing true war firsthand. This was the same brutal reality they had so readily pushed his own people into, young and old alike.
A dark, vengeful thought simmered within Rattan. He felt it wasn’t enough; the Empire needed to suffer more. They needed to witness their own young torn apart by demons, the skulls of their kin used as macabre ornaments by the Abyss’s monstrous denizens. They needed to experience this profound horror for themselves. This was all Rattan’s fantasy for now, a burning desire he had no direct means of fulfilling. Yet, with every step he took, with every grim new reality of this war, he felt himself getting closer.
Kaelen’s voice, sharp and cutting, sliced through Rattan’s dark reverie. "We’re going to start working on our integration with the Abyss." His words, though spoken with a mechanical precision , tell-tale sign of his tech core’s full activation carried a grim weight.
"This new idea of mine is to buy us time before complete integration, which is something we absolutely want to avoid, but it’s unavoidable due to the very nature of things from the Abyss."
Rattan flickered a quick, surreptitious glance at Kaelen. The very concept of "integration with the Abyss" was radical, dangerous, and utterly alien to typical Imperial strategy, which usually focused on pure eradication. But Kaelen, now fully overridden by his cold, calculating tech-core, seemed to have discarded all conventional caution.
"I asked you to bring your armor blueprint," Kaelen continued, his voice devoid of inflection, "because I had an idea where we should start this integration process." He began to lay out his radical proposal, each word a chillingly logical step in a desperate gambit.
"The idea is to merge some of the Abyss material specifically, the corrupted soil and mutated substances from this land – with the armor itself. Simultaneously, we’ll create an interface within the suit to guide the Abyss’s natural corruption, allowing it to bind with the wearer in a controlled manner."
Rattan’s eyes widened, a flicker of professional awe mixed with a deep-seated unease. He understood the implications. "The suit," Kaelen pressed on, "will effectively become alive, and it will slowly, inexorably, integrate with the soldiers who wear it." This wasn’t merely enchanted armor; it was a living, growing entity that would bond with its user on a fundamental, biological level.
"We’re in a race against time," Kaelen stated, his voice unwavering, "so we have to find a way to extend this integration period before the soldier completely merges with the armor and becomes something...else." He paused, a flicker of grim determination in his eyes. "A month is the best time limit I can project to keep the armor from complete, irreversible integration. One month should be enough for this battle to be over with." His plan was clear: a temporary, controlled corruption, a pact with the enemy’s essence, all to gain the edge needed for a swift, decisive victory.
Rattan listened, his initial quiet satisfaction at Kaelen’s plight curdling into a fresh wave of unease. He understood. This wasn’t a request; it was an order, delivered with the cold precision of Kaelen’s tech-core. Rattan knew, deep down, that he had no real say in the matter. His survival, and that of his people, was now irrevocably tied to this desperate gamble.
Swallowing the bitter taste of his forced complicity, Rattan offered his own insights, hoping to at least shape the dangerous path they were now on. "To integrate with Abyss materials," Rattan began, his voice carefully measured, "the suit itself will need a constant, stable magical conduit. A direct, uninterrupted flow from the wearer, perhaps channeled through their own life force, could enhance the binding and extend the ’grace period’ you’re aiming for. We could design specific runic patterns, woven into the very fabric of the armor, that act as a funnel, drawing energy from the wearer’s vitality to fuel the integration, effectively slowing down the corruption by feeding it." He paused, letting the implications sink in. "It would make the soldier’s life force a direct power source for the armor, but it might give us that extra time."
Kaelen simply nodded, his eyes fixed on some distant point, processing Rattan’s suggestion with clinical detachment.
Rattan pressed on, the words forming a question he desperately needed answered. "Have you accounted for the... unforeseen consequences, Lord Kaelen?" Rattan swallowed, the question hanging heavy in the air.