The order to retreat shot through the entire Golem Legion like an electric current.
Without a hint of chaos, the three Freedom Gundams imdiately 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 Punishnt" 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.
So 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. So 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 fragnted 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 fragnts 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 tallic surface was now in complete disarray. Countless micro-fissures, invisible to the naked eye, riddled its interior. Even stranger, large portions of the tal 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 paraters 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 tis, but it doesn’t just start from the surface..."
[Analysis report generated,] Jarvis’s voice chid in at the right mont.
[Target material has undergone an anomalous holistic change. Over 87% of the tallic structure was rapidly converted into a tastable 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 so 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 so unknown ans. This ant they had entered so kind of unknown field of influence.
"That’s right..." Allen grew more certain. "There must be so kind of unknown force field in there."
"If we assu 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 ans the forest was transford, too."
The trees in the Crystalized Forest had also been converted into a crystal-glass-like structure, all while maintaining their living forms.
He imdiately 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 t the sa 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 fras were completely undamaged.
"Why are they fine?"
Allen imdiately opened up their armor plating himself to inspect the internal structures.
Transmission joints, energy conduits, Rune Circuits—every component was intact. The tal 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 ca to rest on the Freedom Gundam’s sleek fra.
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 mont, 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 so unknown power capable of silently disintegrating steel.
And the reason his elite units had erged 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 ti 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 environnt.]
[Hypothesis: The AT Field was continuously counteracting an unknown environntal 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 so 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 fundantal reason for the Crystalized Forest’s formation was that the forest had been crystallized by so 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, tal—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.
tal 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 so 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 so accidentally ford 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.
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