Chapter 228: Chapter 222: The "Pathology" of the Steel Body
The order to retreat shot through the entire Golem Legion like an electric current.
Without a hint of chaos, the three Freedom Gundams immediately turned, forming a solid defensive line with their Ship-Slicing Blades to cover the troops behind them.
The ten Pacifistas fell back in alternating succession. The "Divine Punishment" main cannons on their chests remained charged, acting as ten mobile turrets to intimidate the depths of the forest.
Of the one hundred Spider Slayers, only sixty-odd were still mobile.
Some dragged their comrades who weren’t completely wrecked, while others hopped on three legs. In a battered yet still orderly fashion, they quickly evacuated the beautiful but deadly forest.
The Dream-Weaving Demon Spiders did not give chase. They simply remained entrenched within the Crystalized Forest, their countless compound eyes watching the Steel Legion’s departure through layers of light and shadow. It was as if they were watching a group of ignorant intruders who had finally learned their lesson and retreated from a forbidden land.
This silence was more unnerving than a sky-shaking roar.
"Commander, all units have evacuated to the safe zone," Jarvis’s voice announced. "Final tally: sixty-seven Spider Slayer II units and two Demon Eye II flying fortresses lost. An additional twenty-one Spider Slayers have sustained varying degrees of structural damage."
Allen’s gaze swept over the path they had carved out on the holographic sand table. His face was calm, but his eyes were terrifyingly deep.
"Order the First Golem Legion to take over the Spiderweb Outpost’s defensive line," he issued his second command. "Transport all recovered wreckage and damaged units back to the workshop. I’m going to inspect them myself."
「Two hours later, in the largest testing bay of the Initial Workshop.」
Under the glow of the Magic Power lamps, over a dozen wrecked Spider Slayers were lined up on the floor. They were in all sorts of states. Some looked like shattered glass, while others were relatively intact, with just a few limbs broken into seven or eight pieces.
Allen walked over, crouched down, and picked up a fragmented piece of a broken limb.
It felt strange in his hand. It lacked the weight he expected from Black-Patterned Demonic Iron and felt more like a piece of stone.
He squeezed it with his fingers.
CRACK.
The component, originally forged from high-strength Black-Patterned Demonic Iron, actually crumbled into even smaller fragments between his fingertips, just like shattering glass.
"This..." Allen’s pupils constricted.
He stood up, strode over to an analysis device, and put on the specialized amplifying goggles used by Alchemy Wizards.
A faint blue beam of light scanned the fractured surface of the wreckage, and the material’s microscopic structure was instantly magnified before Allen’s eyes.
The once-orderly metallic surface was now in complete disarray. Countless micro-fissures, invisible to the naked eye, riddled its interior. Even stranger, large portions of the metal had been forcibly twisted and reshaped into a crystalline lattice structure.
’Can steel... get "sick"?’
"Jarvis, pull up the last thirty minutes of operational data for unit 2-056 for comparative analysis."
[Data retrieved.]
A series of parameters flickered across the light screen. Allen’s eyes quickly scanned the energy output curve, structural stress distribution, and Magic Power fluctuation logs, finally stopping on the power output feedback chart.
The curve representing structural stress began to fluctuate abnormally in the eighth minute after entering the forest, indicating that the material had already started to transform at that point.
Allen muttered to himself, "It’s like corrosion accelerated ten million times, but it doesn’t just start from the surface..."
[Analysis report generated,] Jarvis’s voice chimed in at the right moment.
[Target material has undergone an anomalous holistic change. Over 87% of the metallic structure was rapidly converted into a metastable crystalline structure. This structure exhibits an approximate 12% increase in hardness but a decrease in toughness exceeding 99.5%, causing it to disintegrate under slight stress.]
A bolt of lightning flashed through Allen’s mind as he looked at the report.
’If it were suddenly hit by some kind of attack, the change should have progressed from the outside in.’
’It’s an area-of-effect!’
But the Golem materials... their structures "sickened" both inside and out simultaneously, "eroded" into brittle crystal by some unknown means. This meant they had entered some kind of unknown field of influence.
"That’s right..." Allen grew more certain. "There must be some kind of unknown force field in there."
"If we assume this transformation and erosion is a force field, then is the forest itself the source of this Crystallization Field?"
"No, crystals don’t naturally grow into the shape of trees. That means the forest was transformed, too."
The trees in the Crystalized Forest had also been converted into a crystal-glass-like structure, all while maintaining their living forms.
He immediately thought of the "Digger Worm" Exploration Golems that had gone missing underground in the Crystalized Forest.
"The last data they sent back showed abnormal structural pressure... They probably met the same fate."
A terrifying thought arose in his mind. If this power could be released over a large area, wouldn’t his prized Steel Legion turn into a pile of glass creations that would shatter at the slightest touch?
No!
Allen’s head snapped up, his gaze sweeping to the other side of the workshop.
Over there, the three Freedom Gundams and ten Pacifistas were quietly undergoing post-battle maintenance. Aside from a few superficial scratches, their frames were completely undamaged.
"Why are they fine?"
Allen immediately opened up their armor plating himself to inspect the internal structures.
Transmission joints, energy conduits, Rune Circuits—every component was intact. The metal inside was as pristine as new, showing no signs of crystallization.
Allen fell into deep thought.
’Material? No. The Spider Slayers’ armor might be inferior to the Freedom Gundams’, but it’s still demonic iron. The difference in performance shouldn’t be this drastic.’
’The Energy Storage? Even less likely. An anomaly in the power core would only cause a shutdown, never this kind of systemic material transformation.’
Allen paced back and forth in the workshop, his mind racing as he eliminated every possible variable one by one.
Finally, his gaze came to rest on the Freedom Gundam’s sleek frame.
A seemingly insignificant, yet crucial, system surfaced in his mind.
"Jarvis," Allen’s voice was tinged with urgency, "pull up the design schematics for the Freedom Gundam and the Spider Slayer II. Highlight the defensive system modules."
[Retrieving...]
A light screen popped up, displaying the complex schematics of the two Golems side by side. On the Freedom Gundam’s schematic, a system covering its entire body was highlighted in a conspicuous red.
[Core Difference Module: AT Field, Absolute Domain Force Field Generator.]
At this moment, Jarvis’s cold, electronic voice sounded like a revelation to Allen.
"The AT Field..."
Allen stared at the words, a flash of realization in his eyes.
In that seemingly dead Crystalized Forest, there had always existed some unknown power capable of silently disintegrating steel.
And the reason his elite units had emerged unscathed wasn’t because their armor was thicker or their firepower greater, but because they had opened an "umbrella."
’The AT Field has an undiscovered special ability!’
"Jarvis, after the Pacifistas entered the forest, was a low-power AT Field kept active the entire time to defend against the Dream-Weaving Demon Spiders’ ubiquitous webs and psychic attacks?"
[Yes, Commander. That is standard operating procedure.]
"Jarvis, run a comparative analysis. Focus on the AT Field’s Magic Power consumption curve."
[Analyzing...]
[Result: The AT Field energy consumption for the Freedom Gundams and Pacifistas inside the Crystalized Forest was 17% higher than in a normal environment.]
[Hypothesis: The AT Field was continuously counteracting an unknown environmental effect.]
Allen stared at the energy consumption curve, his eyes growing brighter and brighter.
The AT Field, in essence, is a force field barrier that repels matter and energy interference. It can not only block physical attacks but also insulate against some energy impacts and Magic Power corrosion.
"If the crystallization effect is a type of force field originating from a special kind of Magic Power, then the AT Field really would be effective against it."
Allen quickly constructed a complete chain of logic in his mind.
The fundamental reason for the Crystalized Forest’s formation was that the forest had been crystallized by some power. The area itself contained a massive "Crystallization Field."
This field would restructure all matter that entered it into a crystalline lattice from the base level.
Plants, Magical Beasts, metal—nothing was exempt.
The only difference was that the transformation speed likely varied for different substances. Plants were the slowest, possibly taking several years to fully crystallize.
Metal was next, taking anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. As for ordinary creatures without Magic Power protection, they would probably be instantly crystallized into statues upon entry. No wonder the Crystal Shell Giant Scorpions never ventured deep into the forest.
"So that’s why there are only three or four types of Magical Beasts in the Crystalized Forest. They must have evolved some ability to counteract the crystallization effect. That’s also how the Dream-Weaving Demon Spiders can survive in there."
He turned to look at the Crystalized Forest on the sand table and lightly tapped its core area.
"The source of the force field... is probably beneath the spider’s nest."
It was highly likely that some accidentally formed magical mineral vein was buried there. Moreover, it couldn’t have been there from the beginning, otherwise the forest wouldn’t have grown first only to be crystallized later.
