"The first lens is responding well!" an artificer bellowed over the screech of grinding metal, locking the curved quartz into the base of the stripped-down artillery barrel.
Orion stood at the center of battery seven, the Wraithgem pulsing against his sternum. Once more, he expanded his [Holographic Containment] outward, layering the sensory grid over the physical world. The cliff face, the beach below, and the churning ocean became glowing blue wireframes of mana and density.
"Bring up the second housing," he instructed calmly. He kept his eyes fixed on the projection hovering above the weapon, though his mind was parsing through vast amounts of data. "The compression lens must sit exactly forty-two millimeters from the primary collector. Even a millimeter's deviation will refract the beam into the chassis and cook us all.”
Daelin hauled another slab of quartz toward the barrel, his leather apron scored by flying sparks. He and three master cutters laid their hands on the stone, their [Runesmith] Traits activating as they coaxed the stubborn crystal into a perfect convex curve, fusing it directly to the mithril-plated mounts.
While the artificers welded the secondary housing, Orion turned his attention down the cliff toward the shoreline.
The Dreadnought ground against the rocky shallows, its immense tracks churning the seabed into a froth of mud and splintered stone. King Korvan stood directly in its path, radiating a colossal amount of earth-aspected mana as he prepared to swing his hammer once more, this time wreathed in a burning aura.
Again, the metal held. The magic-nullification property absorbed the enhancement infused into the strike, stripping away the mountain-leveling force and leaving only a physical collision between iron and alloy. The machine still shuddered violently, and a massive dent appeared in the gray armor, but the metal did not shatter.
Still, Korvan did not yield an inch of ground. He stood firm as the towering machine pushed against him, sinking into the sand. He raised his free hand, summoning a dozen pillars of granite from the beach, and drove them into the Dreadnought’s flank.
It was for naught, for they crumbled into dust the moment they touched the Silence-alloy.
Through the feed, Orion watched the King nod to himself and realized that Korvan was treating the monstrous ship as a live-fire laboratory. With his staggering physical parameters, boosted by his Trait to ludicrous levels, he had the brute strength to tear the dreadnought apart piece by piece. But he refrained.
He struck the armor at different angles, deploying elemental magic across multiple tiers, cataloging exactly how the new metal absorbed and dissipated the energy. While learning more was obviously the goal, the King was stalling, holding the hundred-foot machine in place to afford Orion the window of time promised in the war room.
But the Iron State wasn’t content, and the ocean behind the massive machine boiled.
Another swarm emerged from the surf, and hundreds of aquatic variants marched onto the sand, shedding seawater from their sealed brass joints. Centurions with paddle-like treads and hydrodynamic plating surged forward, followed by swarms of barnacle-encrusted Crawlers designed to scale the vertical cliff faces. Further out in the dark water, the silhouettes of three more Dreadnoughts advanced, though they lacked the first ship's dull gray sheen and instead gleamed with standard brass armor.
The defenders met the tide without hesitation. Phalanxes of Ironbreakers locked their shields, forming a solid wall of overlapping steel on the beach. Magma launchers from the secondary batteries rained molten rock on the unshielded machines in the rear, turning the surf into a cauldron of boiling steam. Slag-Spitters shredded the machines’ Silence armor, releasing caustic vapors into the air and further muddling Orion’s sight.
The casualties among the dwarves remained remarkably low; their discipline held strong, allowing them to absorb the mechanical charge with experience, having done so for many months by now.
Further down the beach, the distinct presence of Team Obsidian cut through the chaos.
Orion focused his grid on Garrick and watched as he clashed with more of the new variant Praetorians. They moved with grace despite the environment, their blades humming as they lunged.
Garrick parried the strike, the clash of steel ringing clear over the roar of the ocean. He deflected the right blade, stepped inside its guard, and drove his sword through the knee. The first machine collapsed, and Garrick took full advantage, caving in the logic core housing with a Skill that released a thunderclap.
Nearby, Esmeralda wove threads of her own blood into razor-sharp wires, decapitating engineers before they could deploy their portable shields. Jordan anchored their flank, his light blazing like a beacon in the dark, blinding the Crawlers’ optical sensors long enough for Erethemor to incinerate them.
The dragonkin cackled, glowing with barely contained heat as he unleashed a torrent of dragonfire, melting a dozen aquatic Walkers into a puddle of fused slag.
"The third lens is aligned!" Daelin shouted.
Orion snapped his attention back to the platform and saw that the Gamma Cannon's shell was complete. Three layers of mithril plating reinforced the primary chamber, securing the concave-convex quartz array within the barrel. The weapon looked sleek, dangerous, and utterly alien compared to the brutalist aesthetic of standard dwarven engineering.
"Clear the console," he ordered, stepping past the exhausted artificers.
The dwarves backed away, clutching their tools, watching the human mage with a mix of awe and wariness.
By then, they knew they’d built something great, but even so, they still didn’t understand. Nobody could until they saw.
Orion pressed his hands flat against the control panel. The metal was cold, devoid of the familiar runes that usually powered the artillery. He needed to write the execution logic, the bridge that would convert raw mana into a focused beam of high-frequency ionizing radiation, and it had to be him, for no one else possessed the necessary Knowledge.
He closed his eyes as the Wraithgem fed variables directly into his mind: the ambient moisture in the air, the exact distance to the dreadnought, the quartz lenses' refractive index, and the structural density of the Silence-alloy.
He visualized the code, constructing the logic gates in the space between his palms and the iron console.
def initiate_gamma_sequence(mana_source):
wavelength = compress_to_picometers(mana_source, target=0.01)
energy_output = planck_constant * (speed_of_light / wavelength)
return direct_beam(energy_output, focal_lens_array)
He translated the rigid physics into the multidimensional geometry of arcane runecraft, and the Wraithgem pulsed, routing the logic through non-Euclidean spatial routing to prevent the sheer computational load from harming the Cannon’s integrity. Power flowed down his arms, sinking through his palms and etching runes into the iron console.
The metal hissed as it absorbed the alien syntax. A strange hum vibrated through the chassis.
Orion unhooked a leather pouch from his belt. He pulled out six uncut, high-density mana crystals from Thraing’s workshop and slotted them into the primary ignition chamber, then locked the seal tight.
"The weapon is primed," he announced, pausing to behold his creation.
It was a beautiful thing. A weapon unlike any this world had ever seen, the first of its kind. Even as he knew he could iterate on the design, make it better, even more powerful, he still felt deep satisfaction at the sight.
“Yes. You’ll do, won’t you?” he murmured as he caressed the mithril casing, fancying he felt a vibration in reply, though that was probably the fortress shaking as more hits struck it.
He gripped the aiming levers. As the gears whined under the added weight of so much plating, the mount rotated smoothly. He peered through the crystalline reticle, adjusting the elevation.
Down on the beach, the Dreadnought vented a deafening blast of steam, its tracks churning the sand as it tried to push past the King. Korvan struck the prow again with a sweeping blow that buckled a section of the gray plating. Despite the damage, the machine continued its grinding advance toward the lower gates.
Orion locked the coordinates on the center of the dreadnought’s prow, announcing his intentions aloud to give the dwarves time to prepare.
“Engaging the firing sequence.”
Some stepped back. A couple covered their eyes. Still others leaned forward, eager to see the result of what they’d built. It wouldn’t matter.
He channeled a burst of his own mana into the ignition chamber, completing the circuit between the raw crystals and the logic gates and allowing the connection with the Field to solidify, after which the crystals began drawing on their own.
The Wraithgem flared a crackling violet as he focused his full attention on the Gamma Cannon, determined to ensure everything was perfect.
And the Gamma Cannon answered back. It did not roar, lacking the percussive, chest-rattling boom of black powder or the rushing explosion of molten rock. Instead, it emitted a high-pitched, crystalline shriek, the sound of Reality tearing at the seams.
A beam of invisible energy erupted from the barrel.
The air itself ionized along the trajectory, leaving a glowing blue trail of fractured oxygen molecules that stretched from the cliff face down to the shoreline. The concentrated radiation struck the prow of the Dreadnought so quickly that it was effectively instantaneous.
Through the wireframe grid, Orion watched his plan come together.
As expected, the Silence-alloy reacted to the strike, its magic-nullification properties attempting to absorb the incoming energy. But the payload carried no arcane structure; it was pure, high-frequency radiation. The lattice spiked in temperature, fundamentally incapable of dissipating the intense thermal and ionizing load.
Gray plating across the front of the ship turned bright cherry red.
The metal blistered, glowing white-hot in the smoke. Then, it shattered.
Silence-alloy fractured like brittle glass under a hammer, exploding outward in a shower of glowing shards that rained down on the wet sand. The impenetrable armor dissolved, revealing the vulnerable hull, the spinning brass gears, and the thick conduits to the dreadnought's driving brain beneath.
On the beach, King Korvan had paused his assault just before Orion struck, his warhammer resting against his shoulder. He stared at the machine’s ruined prow, then slowly looked up at battery seven.
Even from hundreds of feet away, Orion saw the triumphant grin split the King’s silver beard. Korvan turned back to the exposed hull.
With the magic-nullifying armor stripped away, the King no longer held back his strikes and channeled the full might of his class, drawing an unfathomable well of earth-aspected mana into his weapon.
This time, when he brought the black iron hammer down, the impact shattered the chassis.
Reinforced brass buckled, tearing open with a screech of rending metal. Korvan surged forward, stepping directly into the breach, dropped his hammer, and grabbed the torn edges of the hull with his gauntleted hands. His S-rank physical parameters were fully on display, muscles corded with the strength of a mountain. He pulled, ripping the thick panels apart as easily as a man tearing parchment.
The King then waded into the belly of the dreadnought. He hunted down the internal components that kept the machine alive, crushing logic cores in his fists, ripping the glowing vats of Silence from their mounts, shattering the glass and letting the foul liquid spill. He found the brains suspended in their tanks and pulverized them without a second thought.
The dreadnought let out a final, dying groan as steam vented and gears collapsed. The towering machine shuddered, its tracks grinding to a halt, then collapsed into the surf, reduced to a lifeless shell.
Deafening cheers erupted from the dwarven lines.
The sight of the colossal ship collapsing galvanized the defenders. The Ironbreakers advanced, striking hard and forcing the aquatic machines back toward the deeper waters. The batteries intensified their fire, unleashing molten rock and shrapnel on the unshielded dreadnoughts lurking in the back.
The Iron State fleet, witnessing the destruction of their shielded spearhead and the sudden counterattack, began to slow. The unshielded dreadnoughts reversed their engines, churning the dark water as they pulled back, abandoning the offensive.
The battle was won.
Orion released his grip on the aiming levers, let out a tired breath, and finally turned his attention to the System Notifications.