Chapter 537
These reprogrammed mana disruptors were now floating in various strategic positions around their world, their silent emanations weaving an invisible shield. This mana-dampening field covered their entire planet, a disruptive blanket designed to scramble magical detection and obscure any incoming scrying attempts. It wouldn’t take long, perhaps a few hours at most, before the Empire’s mages would discover the interference. But hopefully, by then, what needed to be done would already be accomplished.
Even before the terrifying broadcast ripped through the Imperial lands, a different kind of tension hummed in the hallowed halls of the mages’ towers. Vellok stood alongside a dozen other tower masters, their gazes fixed on a series of scrying screens. They weren’t watching for entertainment; they were scrutinizing. Their collective focus was on the armor’s performance, observing every shimmer, every defensive deflection, every enhancement it seemed to grant the ratfolk.
"The initial reports were... minimal," one of the tower masters murmured, his voice tight. "A ’new batch of experimental gear,’ they said."
Vellok grunted, his gaze never leaving a ratman deflecting a demon’s claw with an almost impossible ease. "Minimal, indeed. This is no mere ’experimental gear.’ Look at the kinetic transference. The resilience against lesser demonic energy. It’s too effective."
"Far too effective," another master chimed in, a tremor of unease in his voice. "They’re fighting with an... unnatural cohesion. A strength they shouldn’t possess."
A heavy silence descended as the implications settled like a cold stone in the pit of their stomachs. The Empire’s strategic doctrine concerning the ratfolk was clear: they were a disposable shield, meant to bleed and delay, to soften the enemy for the ’superior’ Imperial legions. They were never meant to be effective in their own right, never meant to inspire anything but pity or contempt.
"If the armor proves too effective for the ratfolk," Vellok finally spoke, his voice low and deliberate, "then actions will need to be taken. This is the opposite of what the Empire has planned for." He gestured to a screen showing a ratman warrior, now almost radiant in his new gear, carving a path through a swarm of fiends. "An empowered ratfolk is a complication. An empowered, aware ratfolk is a liability."
The other tower masters nodded, grim expressions on their faces. The thought of the ratfolk becoming genuinely capable, genuinely powerful, was anathema to their carefully constructed racial hierarchies and strategic manipulations.
Vellok and the tower masters continued their grim assessment of the battlefield feeds, the flickering images of the empowered ratfolk solidifying their unease. The air in the chamber was thick with unspoken tension, a cold realization settling amongst them: this was a problem far greater than a mere anomaly. Their plans for the ratfolk, for the entire war effort, were being undermined.