A minute later, another tank squadron rushed over to the intersection of Convoy 12’s and Convoy 9’s battlefield.

“Amy, Balshan, are you guys alright?” The leader, Iffy, shouted from afar.

Balshan waved her hand to indicate that she was fine, while Amy shouted back excitedly. “Why are you here? We just got rid of a large fella!”

“Wasn’t it because of the loud cannon booms.” Iffy finally relaxed after seeing that the two were unharmed. She jumped down the tank and quickly walked over to the monster’s body that had experienced having a high explosive shell tear through its body, and asked in shock. “What is this?”

“It should be a Nest Mother, but honestly, I’m not too sure,” Balshan muttered.

It could be said that the discharge had been delivered cleanly, not only were the internal organs completely destroyed, even the head had been blasted off. Of course, whether or not the monster had a head was a different question altogether—since according to logic, living creatures would not flee while running backwards.

The magic power within the monster dissipated subsequently, causing it to turn into its meat pulp state the instant the body collapsed. The only thing left standing were the two rows of completely damaged ribs.

“Are you sure this is a Nest Mother?” Iffy fished out her manual and compared them with a frown. “The bone structure seems similar, but it seems smaller, and there aren’t many tentacles… Right, have you seen the eyes inside its body?”

The enormous compound eye was the Nest Mother’s most prominent feature. According to the manual, it was more or less the same size as the Nest Mother’s internal organs and situated right in the center. It was impossible to miss.

Balshan shook her head. “I guessed that she was the Nest Mother, only because it was able to carry many blade beasts. As for everything else, I’m as confused as you are. But…” She paused for a moment. “Ignoring the Nest Mother, all the monsters here differ slightly from all the ones stated in the manual. If you don’t believe me, look at that dead blade beasts—”

Iffy then realized that the peculiarities on the blade beast corpses around the Nest Mother. “Are those… wings?”

“That’s right,” Balshan answered. “It looks as light and thin as a cicada’s wings, but much larger in size. Using these wings, they were able to pounce across large distances, that is something unprecedented.”

“I sort of understand why the higher ups wants us to retrieve intact Sky-sea Realm specimens.” Iffy sighed after staring at the corpses for a long time. “Their rate of evolution and variation is too astonishing.”

“That is a question the higher ups have to consider.” Balshan climbed up her tank and gestured to Iffy. “As for us—we just have to destroy them.”

…

The report of the First Army reclaiming the Taquila Ruins quickly arrived at Roland’s office.

In this “city battle”, the demonic beasts were no longer the main enemies. This was the first large-scale appearance of the Sky-sea Realm and the majority of the threat were from the blade beasts.

But compared to the previous time when a single or two blade beasts were enough to thwart the troops’ defense line, the outcome could be said to be completely different.

The newly commissioned armor unit displayed its decisive effectiveness in battle, not only by locking down the enemy’s position but also winning most of the battles. The First Army paid an extremely small price to eliminate most of the Sky-sea Realm’s presence, and gained a stable foothold on the Fertile Plains. Amongst the achievements, Convoys 12 and 9 had eliminated a Nest Mother as well as over ten blade beasts together while coming out unscathed, which completely overhauled how the army perceived battles. Aside from asserting details of the battle, the remaining report were related to applying for an increase in production of the tanks. Even with insufficient witches, the army was willing to allow ordinary officers to take command of the vehicles.

Obviously, they had tasted the benefits of having the heavy armor with all-encompassing offense and defense capabilities.

Roland was not surprised by the outcome—the title of being the king of ground battles was established from the two World Wars, declaring the importance and weight of tanks in battles. If not for that, he would not had transferred a team to specially learn how to pilot the vehicles during the early phase of producing the tractors.

Compared to this matured weapon, Roland was more concerned over the monster corpses being delivered back by trains.

At noon time, Agatha’s phone call came. It was regarding the preliminary verdict on the dissection and analysis of the corpses.

…

Upon entering the Magic Tower’s lower levels, a cold breeze welcomed Roland.

A pile of large ice cubes were arranged in an orderly manner inside the large basement. People unaware would assume that the place was an ice storage, but Roland knew that the ice cubes were frozen Sky-sea Realm corpses transported back from the front lines for the Witch Union to research.

The dissecting area was located in the center of the room, where Agatha removed her gloves and performed the union’s hand salute to him.

“You seem happy,” Roland tightened his collar and commented.

“Because I’m back to my old job again.” Agatha smiled. “To be honest, the ice-cold laboratory still suits me best. Representing Taquila’s expeditions, all those political meets and conferences aren’t my strengths.”

With regards to the best representative of the ancient witches, Pasha was obviously the most suitable, but moving the carrier’s large body was mostly inconvenient, thus Agatha was rationally chosen as the second best candidate.

Seeing Roland’s desire to express himself but at a loss for words, the Ice Witch took the initiative and waved her hand. “Relax, your Majesty, the Battle of Divine Will takes precedence, I understand that.”

He nodded and focused on the pressing issues at hand. “What did you discover?”

“Your Majesty, please take a look here.” Agatha condensed an ice blade at her fingertips, and pricked into a large organ. “This was retrieved from the new Nest Mother, I found distinct signs of age in its interior. Likewise, I haven’t seen such a thing on any of the blade beasts.”

“Signs of age?” Roland frowned. He noticed that there was a clear dark blotch of creases at where the ice blade was.

“That’s right. Magic Power is capable of strengthening the magic user’s body, something proven on witches and demons, so naturally the Sky-sea Realm will not be an exception. And the most obvious indicator of the physical enhancement is an increased life expectancy,” Agatha explained in detail. “I have consulted the reports supplied by the demons, and there are no clear mentions of how long Nest Mothers can survive. On the contrary, it does state that blade beasts and the other beasts do not have long life expectancy. Even though they die fast, the Nest Mothers are able to breed new beasts quickly.”

“You mean to say… that the situation here is reversed?” Nightingale spoke up. “Could it be that this Nest Mother is old?”

“If it was a single case, it would be hard to tell. But we received four corpses from the frontlines, and I found similarities in all cases. This cannot be a coincidence,” Agatha replied. “And you’ve come across a Nest Mother yourself and know how big they are. In terms of size, all of these monsters that are less than 10 meters long do not look as though they’ve hit their prime.”

“That’s true.”

“And regardless of the wings they use to pounce or the increasingly larger scythes, everything is going against their past characteristics.” She turned and looked at Roland. “Your Majesty, I do not think that these things are the same as their old counterparts, those that reside freely in the water.”

“So your conclusion is?” Roland’s expression became solemn.

“I’m afraid that the Nest Mothers are moving their own magic power onto their servants to create even stronger sources of troops.” Agatha enunciated each and every word. “It is just that their evolution is deviating away from the ocean, to the extent that I can say that they are sacrificing the future of their species.”

Roland sighed. “But that means we are in trouble.”