Episode-868
Chapter : 1735
He turned to leave the hall. The noise was too much. He needed to get back to his workshop. He needed to start drawing plans for the new defensive grid.
But he didn't make it to the door.
Ken Park intercepted him.
The contrast was jarring. The room was celebrating, but Ken looked like he had just seen a ghost. The assassin’s face was pale, his dark eyes wide and focused on something only he could see. He moved with a stiff, jerky urgency that Lloyd had never seen before.
"My Lord," Ken whispered, blocking Lloyd’s path. He didn't bow.
Lloyd stopped. The celebration around them seemed to fade into background noise. "Ken? What is it? Is it an assassin?"
"No," Ken said. His voice was trembling slightly. "It is an anomaly. My network... the deep-range listening posts we set up in the wasteland... they picked up a signal."
"A signal?" Lloyd frowned. "From where?"
"From the Great Salt Desert," Ken said.
"The desert?" Lloyd shook his head. "There is nothing there, Ken. It’s a dead zone. Just salt and scorpions for five hundred miles south of the border."
"Not anymore," Ken said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small sound-recording crystal. It pulsed with a faint, chaotic light. "The signal... it wasn't magic. It wasn't spirit energy. I know the sound of mana, My Lord. I know the sound of demons. This was... noise."
"Noise?"
"Static," Ken said. "Like the sound the Aegis suit makes when the core overloads. But louder. Much louder. And structured."
Lloyd froze.
Static. Electronic noise. In a world of magic, that meant only one thing.
Technology.
"Show me," Lloyd commanded, his voice turning to ice.
Ken pressed the crystal into Lloyd’s hand. Lloyd held it up to his ear.
He heard it immediately.
It wasn't the roar of a dragon. It wasn't the chanting of a spell. It was a high-pitched whine, rhythmic and mechanical. It was the sound of heavy turbines spinning up to speed. It was the sound of a distorted, encrypted radio transmission cutting through the atmosphere.
Thrum... Thrum... Thrum...
It was the sound of a thruster.
Lloyd’s blood ran cold. The celebration, the treaties, the marriage proposals—it all suddenly felt very small. He looked back at the Great Hall. He saw King Liam laughing. He saw Queen Seraphina smiling, hopeful for the future. He saw his father, proud and strong.
They were celebrating peace. They were celebrating a victory in a war of swords and shields.
They had no idea.
They were playing checkers, moving their little wooden pieces around a board, thinking they had won. But someone else had just walked into the room. Someone had just landed a chessboard made of titanium and circuits right on top of them.
"Get the Titan Squad ready," Lloyd whispered. He didn't recognize his own voice. It sounded like a stranger’s—the voice of a soldier who had thought the war was over, only to realize the real enemy had just arrived.
"Tell the alchemists to triple production on the armor-piercing rounds," Lloyd ordered, his grip tightening on the crystal. "Tell them to stop making swords."
"Who is it, My Lord?" Ken asked, fear creeping into his eyes. "Is it the Devils?"
"I don't know," Lloyd said. A dark, terrified part of him knew exactly what that sound was. It was the sound of home. It was the sound of Earth.
"But they aren't from around here," Lloyd said, looking toward the window, toward the invisible desert far to the south. "And the war... the war just changed."
The cheers in the hall continued, loud and joyous, completely unaware that the sky above the desert had just been torn open by something that didn't believe in magic.
The Great Salt Desert was a place where the world went to die.
It was not like the sandy deserts of the south, where dunes shifted in the wind and scorpions hid in the shadows. This place was different. It was a vast, blinding expanse of white crystal that stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction. The ground was hard as stone and flat as a table. Under the relentless, bleaching sun, the white salt reflected the light like a mirror. If a man tried to walk across it without dark glasses, he would go blind in an hour. If he tried to walk without water, he would be dead in two.
Chapter : 1736
Nothing grew here. No cactus, no dry grass, not even moss. No birds flew overhead because there were no bugs to eat. It was a blank canvas of desolation. It was the quietest place on the continent, a place of perfect, white silence.
But today, the silence was broken.
It didn't start with a sound. It started with the sky.
High above the salt flats, the blue sky began to distort. It looked like a heat wave on a summer road, shimmering and wobbly. But it wasn't heat. The fabric of the air itself was stretching. The light bent and twisted, turning colors that didn't belong in nature—neon violets and electric greens.
Then came the sound.
It was a low, grinding noise, like two massive metal plates rubbing together deep underground. The noise grew louder and louder until it shook the salt crystals on the ground. It wasn't the roar of a dragon. It wasn't the boom of thunder. It was the sound of reality being torn open.
With a noise like a cracking whip that echoed for fifty miles, the sky ripped apart.
A hole opened in the air. It was a geometric tear, a perfect black triangle that hovered in the sky. It didn't look magical. It looked artificial. It looked like someone had taken a knife to a painting and sliced it open.
Through the tear, a shape descended.
It was a ship. But it looked nothing like the wooden sailing ships of Bethelham or the airships of the gnomes. This vessel was sleek, metallic, and utterly alien to this world. It was shaped like a teardrop, aerodynamic and smooth. Its hull was painted a matte charcoal black that seemed to absorb the sunlight rather than reflect it. There were no sails, no oars, no propellers.
It floated on a cushion of invisible energy. As it lowered toward the ground, a deep, pulsating hum filled the air—thrum, thrum, thrum. It was the sound of anti-gravity engines fighting the planet's pull.
On the side of the black ship, a single symbol glowed with a soft, bioluminescent green light. It was a picture of a small insect with a glowing tail.
A Firefly.
The craft touched down on the salt flats. Heavy landing gear deployed from the bottom of the ship with a loud hiss of hydraulics. The metal feet slammed into the salt, cracking the surface. Steam vented from the sides of the ship, curling in the dry desert air. Then, the engines powered down. The hum faded away, leaving only the sound of the cooling metal ticking in the heat.
For a long minute, nothing happened. The ship just sat there, a dark intruder in a white world.
Then, a ramp lowered slowly from the belly of the ship.
Seven figures walked down the ramp.
They were human, or at least, they were shaped like humans. But they moved with a synchronized, mechanical precision that made them look like machines. They wore identical bodysuits made of a strange, flexible material. As they walked, the color of their suits shifted slightly, matching the white of the salt and the gray of the ship. It was active camouflage—technology that made them hard to see.
Over the suits, they wore heavy armor plates on their chests, shoulders, and legs. The armor was matte black and hummed with a faint blue energy field. Their faces were completely covered by full helmets with opaque, T-shaped visors. The visors glowed with scrolling text and data streams that only the soldiers could see.
They carried weapons that were not swords, bows, or staffs. They held compact, angular rifles made of dark metal. Heavy pulse cannons hung from their backs. On their belts, they carried devices that looked like grenades but pulsed with a strange, dimensional energy.
They stepped onto the salt, their heavy boots crunching on the crystals. They didn't look around in wonder. They didn't pause to admire the view. They fanned out instantly, forming a perfect defensive circle around the ship. Their rifles were raised, scanning the horizon for threats.
"Atmosphere breathable," a female voice crackled over their internal radio channel. Her voice was distorted by encryption, sounding robotic. "Gravity is 0.98 of Earth standard. Temperature is 45 degrees Celsius. We are green."
"What about the energy readings?" the Leader asked.
"Mana density is... high, Commander," the female soldier replied. "Extremely high. The air is thick with it. It’s interfering slightly with our long-range sensors, but the shields are holding. This planet is basically a giant battery."
"Copy that," the Commander said.