“Something absolutely insane just came out...”
“Woooow! Amazing, Big Sis! Let me calculate—weight is roughly proportional to the cube of length, so using a standard land turtle as a baseline... 477,000 tons!”
“That’s so heavy I don’t even understand what you’re saying.”
“Don’t worry, Big Sis! It doesn’t deviate that much from the density of water!”
Of course, the weight was only an estimate, but it should not be wildly off.
<The Reflector> lifted its enormous body on six legs and began to walk, slowly.
“Hm... The species name is <Spirit Turtle>.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Individual name <The Reflector>. Registering threat organism with species name <Spirit Turtle>.”
“Oho, Spirit Turtle! The one that carries Mount Horai on its back!”
While the group continued that mostly content-free conversation, the feed showed <The Reflector> stretching its neck out hard.
In that instant, the image lurched and shook.
“Eek—w-what was that?”
“Anomaly detected in the surveillance drone’s telemetry.”
“Big Sis, a ridiculous impact just occurred! Probably a shockwave!”
A roar, most likely. The video was vibrating violently. Looking closer, even the surrounding trees seemed to be bending in huge sways.
A volume so extreme it could not be recognized as sound.
“Each sensor on the surveillance drone is reporting abnormal values. Mechanical malfunction appears to have occurred due to the acoustic shock. Flight and filming can continue, but the airframe status has switched to Caution Yellow.”
“Big Sis, I’ll launch a replacement drone?”
“I’ll swing another drone over too~”
While approving Utsugi and Erika’s requests, Commander Eve checked the wyverns from a different angle.
“This one... ugh, it’s moving.”
As Eve said, one of ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) the two wyverns turned its course toward <The Reflector>.
“Big Sis, electromagnetic-wave emission confirmed! Source is <The Reflector>! It looks like it has a biological radar too! Whoa, the wyvern’s blasting waves out hard too! The microwave band is completely jammed!”
<The Reflector> had already been confirmed to have the trait of reflecting electromagnetic waves. Having an organ that emitted electromagnetic waves was not surprising. But if it functioned as biological radar, that was a different story.
“Maybe it has anti-air attack methods! A threat organism that’s conscious of the sky, maybe!?”
“Ugh, don’t say that. It’ll make deploying the Gigantia unit a lot harder...”
At Asahi’s delighted forecast, Eve frowned.
If a threat organism had anti-air attack methods, operating paper-armored Gigantia and <Titan> became difficult. Their huge bodies lacked agility, meaning they would keep taking hits.
“Wyvern: attack pre-motion confirmed. Likely dragon breath.”
The wyvern headed for <The Reflector> opened its jaws wide.
A flash burst out.
“Electromagnetic radiation confirmed. Charged-particle attack. Direct hit on <The Reflector>.”
“Magic defense barrier! The wyvern’s breath is being scattered by <The Reflector>’s barrier!”
Near-light-speed charged particles slammed into <The Reflector>’s shell. But the light geometric pattern covering the body surface seemed to block it completely. The breath was repelled like fireworks and dispersed. Some struck the forest trees below, starting fires.
“This is a full-on giant-monster showdown...”
“This is bad—seriously! Can our current weapons even stand up to that!?”
Faced with the spectacular feed, Eve was rattled, while Asahi squealed in delight.
“The magic defense barrier is the problem, but even if we break through it, I think the mass difference will nullify most attacks.”
Reacting to Asahi’s remark—apparently thinking through countermeasures—Akane began explaining.
“It depends on shell hardness, but based on our experience so far, it should have absurd durability. Even if we strip the barrier and land a direct hit with a bunker-buster penetrator, it’s unclear whether we could pierce the shell.”
“Akane’s exactly right! A normal bunker-buster penetrator doesn’t look like it has enough penetration! We might need a dedicated hypersonic missile!”
Considering the traits of the threat organisms they had fought so far, that was true. On top of the troublesome magic defense barrier, the body tissues themselves were rugged.
In fact, they had never managed to injure the Mountain Boar they fought long ago. There was no reason to expect that <The Reflector>, with a body far larger than that, would be weaker than the Mountain Boar.
“So either a penetration-specialized shell, or missiles. Hm... At this point we probably have to seriously think about reproducing magic, or someday this is going to become a disaster...”
“Yeah! And it feels like <Demon Forest> is getting stirred up overall! This will probably make it even worse!”
“I feel like we’re the ones stirring it up...”
The Forest Kingdom of Levresta’s “Death March” stampede incident had happened because <The Tree> killed a wyvern. That had shifted threat-organism territories massively.
Even so, nobody could have predicted effects spreading this wide—and in such a chain reaction.
“Big Sis, <The Reflector> is...”
“Hm?”
Called by Ichigo, Eve—mid-conversation with Asahi—returned her gaze to the display.
<The Reflector> had turned its long neck toward the wyvern behind it. Around its head, several things rapidly appeared and began swelling larger.
“Huh?”
“Eight rocks have appeared around the head. Rapidly increasing in volume.”
The rocks grew gigantic in moments. Their distorted shapes reached a diameter of five meters—then accelerated as if snapped loose.
“Rocks: estimated diameter five meters via image analysis. Current speed 250 kilometers per hour. Accelerating. Reached 350 kilometers per hour.”
“What—!?”
“Ohhh, this is—Stone Bullet!!”
Eve’s shout was overlapped by Asahi’s cheer.
Eight rocks flew through the air one after another. Accelerating fast, they lined up head-on with the approaching wyvern.
“Trajectory correction confirmed.”
The rocks did not simply fly straight. They continued accelerating while taking a direct-hit course toward the target wyvern.
“Wyvern: course change.”
The wyvern noticed the rocks, spread its wings, and climbed sharply. The rocks chased upward into the sky.
Dashed lines were added to the feed: the wyvern’s projected future position, the rocks’ projected future positions. They overlapped perfectly.
“Rocks have broken the sound barrier.”
The wyvern’s flight speed was around 300 kilometers per hour. In the blink of an eye, the rocks caught it—and then—
An explosion.
Rocks shattered into fragments, and the wyvern was blasted away in an unnatural posture.
Then the remaining seven rock masses crashed in one after another.
“The first explosive sound was a sonic boom caused by the rocks reaching the speed of sound. Wyvern damage... cannot be confirmed. However, internal-organ damage is possible. Consciousness appears intact.”
The knocked-away wyvern flapped hard, trying to regain posture.
At that timing, <The Reflector> lifted a foreleg—
—and slammed it down.
At a glance, it looked meaningless.
But the instant the leg struck the ground, the wyvern—completely off-balance—plunged straight down as if smashed from above by a giant hammer.
“L-Long-range strike!?”
Asahi’s (delighted) scream.
In that instant, the other wyvern’s dragon breath hit <The Reflector>’s head directly.
A burst of flashing light.
<The Reflector> repelled the breath, opened its mouth, and let out a short roar.
The space around the breath-firing wyvern visibly warped—and in that moment, a massive explosion erupted. Caught in it, the wyvern fell in a spiraling corkscrew.
“...What...?”
“Kyaa!”
Eve’s baffled, horrified voice—and Asahi’s thrilled shriek—echoed through the command room.
