The Guardian gods-Chapter 576

By now, Kaelen had secured the necessary approvals from both Vellok and the Emperor. The moment he confirmed the Abyssal armor was ready for mass production, he dispatched Gorok to deliver its building methods to Vellok.

For the first time since the war began, a new energy swept through the entire fortress. Changes materialized with astonishing speed: walls and tents were torn down, and in their place, factories swiftly rose and hummed to life. Each new factory meant that every soldier would soon receive their groundbreaking new armor. Even the ratfolk were included in this drastic plan; for Kaelen, all political considerations had been cast aside. Only survival mattered now.

The transformative power of the new armor was felt almost overnight by the soldiers who received it. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, they were finally able to shut their eyes and experience normal, undisturbed sleep. The corrupted land, which had relentlessly assailed them with psychic torment, seemed to have lost its strange grip on these armored soldiers. It no longer attacked them; instead, an unsettling sense of familiarity, almost a feeling of home, began to bloom between the soldiers and the corrupted lands themselves.

For the mages, the armor functioned more as a focusing lens and a power conduit, rather than just a shield. Instead of merely absorbing the psychic static of the corrupted land, the runes and the Interface Sigil within the mages’ armor would likely filter and refine it. This allows them to draw upon the ambient Abyssal psychic energy as an additional, albeit dangerous, mana source.

The integrated Abyss material acted as a catalyst for their existing spells, amplifying their destructive or protective capabilities. A mage’s firebolt might burn with a sickly green flame, or their shield spells might ripple with dark, corrosive energy.

It took a grueling three weeks for the entire army to regroup, re-equip, and emerge as something new entirely. Kaelen, observing the transformation, immediately ordered a one-week rest, hoping his soldiers could recover and return to their peak. But the rest was brutally short-lived. The current soldiers were no longer as they were before. They were restless like the demons they fought, their newly integrated Abyssal essence stirring within them. They no longer simply accepted orders; they desired battle, craved bloodshed, and were fiercely eager to test the destructive power of their new armor.

The Abyss, for weeks, had known only the slow, psychological grind of attrition. But that fragile peace shattered with the dawn. The Imperial army, no longer content with passive defense, surged forth from the fortress, a dark, churning tide.

The demons on the corrupted lands, accustomed to the scent of fear and the sight of faltering resolve, paused. Their multi-faceted eyes, usually quick to identify prey, now struggled to process the unfolding sight. This wasn’t the same army. The familiar glint of polished Imperial steel was now eclipsed by a dull, obsidian sheen on armor that seemed to writhe with a subtle, internal energy. Where once there was the scent of human and goblin sweat, of fear and desperation, now there was a faint, unsettling aroma – metallic, earthy, and underscored by something subtly akin to their own sulfurous breath, a hint of the Abyss itself.

There wasn’t the expected repulsion. Instead, a low, guttural murmur rippled through the demon ranks, a sound that quickly swelled into a chorus of unholy glee. Their forms, usually contorted in malice, seemed to straighten, their claws flexing in anticipation. Kin! the primal part of their minds shrieked, not in recognition of shared blood, but of shared essence, of a corruption that resonated with their very being. The prey was no longer just prey; it was a challenge, a twisted reflection, a glorious, new kind of battle.

The clash was instantaneous, a cataclysmic collision of two dark forces. The air screamed as the transformed Imperial soldiers met the demon charge. No longer fighting with cautious tactics, the soldiers moved with a feral, unthinking aggression, their movements mirroring the demons’ own chaotic ferocity. An ogre warrior, his Abyssal armor rippling with dark energy, met a hulking brute demon head-on, not with a block, but with a bone-shattering shoulder charge that sent both tumbling into the churned earth. His fists, now edged with jagged, dark protrusions from the armor, hammered down with a strength that cracked the demon’s carapace. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

Ratfolk, their new, sleek suits making them appear like armored, predatory shadows, darted beneath the larger demons, their blades not just cutting, but leaving trails of dark, corrosive energy where they struck. A demon’s limb, severed by a ratfolk’s blade, didn’t just fall; it began to blacken and wither, consumed by the very essence of the Abyss that now infused the weapon.

The psychic static, once a torment, now felt like a surging current to the armored soldiers. They roared, not in pain, but in exhilaration, their minds now able to draw on the ambient corruption, converting it into a raw, brutal energy that fueled their attacks. A goblin mage, his eyes glowing with the same unsettling red as Grond’s, unleashed a torrent of fire that was no longer just orange, but streaked with sickly green and purple, burning with an unholy intensity that made even the demons recoil.

The initial surge of brutal power and primal exhilaration eventually gave way to the grim realities of sustained combat. The battlefield became a churning maelstrom of intertwined bodies, echoing with snarls, roars, and the sickening wet sounds of tearing flesh and shattering bone. While the Imperial army, infused with Abyssal essence, fought with unprecedented ferocity, they were still mortal. Demons, too, possessed their own brutal strengths and numbers.

Loss mounted on both sides. A towering ogre, his Abyssal armor humming, managed to tear through three mid-tier demons before a fourth, a hulking, spiked monstrosity, impaled him through the chest with a sudden lunge. A ratfolk, empowered beyond his previous limits, met his end when a swarm of smaller, agile imps overwhelmed him, their tiny, razor claws finding the chinks in his reinforced plating. But for every armored soldier that fell, two or three demons followed, their corrupted forms consumed by the very dark energies they had once wielded exclusively. Slowly, inexorably, the tide seemed to tilt, the Empire’s forces, though bruised and bleeding, gaining a grim, bloody advantage.High above the carnage, Kaelen hovered alongside the two remaining sixth-tier mages, Lyra and Korvin, their faces grim, their eyes scanning the brutal tableau. They had been observing, analyzing the new, chaotic movements of their transformed army, trying to discern patterns in the madness. The soldiers moved with devastating power, but their cohesion was a ragged, visceral thing, driven by instinct rather than strategy. It was efficient, yes, but wasteful.

"They’re too... feral," Lyra muttered, her voice tight with a mix of awe and horror. "They fight like demons, not soldiers. This is unsustainable."

Korvin nodded, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "The controlled corruption is working, but it’s pushing their minds to the brink. They need direction, true command, or they’ll exhaust themselves into oblivion."

Kaelen, his face a mask of cold resolve, finally spoke, his voice cutting through the comms. "It’s time to reassert order. This ’freedom’ is costing us too many. We need to remind them who they serve." His eyes, normally glowing with the detached blue of his tech-core, flickered with a raw, almost predatory intensity. "This is not a game. It is not a feast. It is a war, and it will be fought with ruthless efficiency."

With a swift, almost imperceptible motion, Kaelen descended. He landed directly amidst a brutal melee, where an armored goblin, roaring with a guttural, half-demon growl, was savagely tearing at the throat of a fallen demon, completely oblivious to his flanks. Without a word, without a moment of hesitation, Kaelen’s hand shot out. It clamped around the goblin’s head, the movement too fast for the soldier’s rage-addled mind to register. A sickening crack echoed faintly amidst the battle din as Kaelen snapped the goblin’s neck.

The transformed soldier crumpled, the Abyssal armor on his body briefly flaring before its internal hum died, the life-force conduit severed. Kaelen stood over the fallen body, his gaze sweeping across the nearby soldiers who, for the first time since the transformation, seemed to jolt out of their bloodlust. Their eyes, which had glowed with that unsettling red, wavered, a flicker of fear replacing the primal aggression.

His voice, amplified by his tech-core, boomed, devoid of any warmth, across that immediate sector of the battlefield. "This is not a carnival! You are not beasts! You are soldiers of the Empire. Your strength is a tool, not a master. You will fight with discipline, or you will be removed." The cold, hard reality of his resolve cut through the intoxicating haze of the Abyss, a brutal reassertion of command.

Kaelen’s tech core had already informed him of this brutal necessity. Its cold, calculating algorithms confirmed that this was the most effective, indeed the only, path to dealing with the army’s new, savage nature. They had to be met with brutality and a calculated cruelty that resonated with their own newfound Abyssal instincts.

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