Synopsis:

  The world has changed forever. The crushing fall of the Parpaldia Empire, brought down by the steel fists of Russia, sent shockwaves rippling across every continent, shattering a thousand-year-old global order. The Russian Federation — yesterday's "barbarian from the east" — is now being invited with wary respect and outright awe to the "Conference of Leaders of the Eleven Nations," the exclusive gathering of the planet's mightiest powers as they scramble to find their footing in this chaotic new era.

  On this grand stage of global politics, a new and far more dangerous game is unfolding. The world learns with horror of the inevitable return of the Ancient Magical Empire of Ravernal — an almost mythical evil capable of wiping entire civilizations off the face of the earth. At the very same time, the Gra Valkas Empire, another intruder from a different world altogether, hurls a brazen challenge at the entire planet, demanding total submission or complete annihilation.

  Caught between the hammer of ancient magic and the anvil of industrial aggression, Russia chooses its own third path: armed neutrality. Having transformed itself into an unpredictable "gray eminence" pulling strings from the shadows, it watches, it analyzes, and it quietly prepares to deliver a devastating blow at the exact moment no one expects it.

  Yet while the most intricate intrigues are being woven on the world stage and the fleets of superpowers gear up for all-out war, almost no one notices that right in the very heart of Russia — in its bustling megacities and clandestine laboratories — a different, hidden threat is quietly maturing. A threat that has come from within and may prove far more terrifying than any foreign enemy.

  The Russian Federation. Moscow Region. Subterranean level of Scientific Research Complex No. 5, "Facility 'Crossroads'."

  The sterile silence of the gigantic, hangar-like underground laboratory was broken only by the rhythmic, almost inaudible hum of the ventilation systems and the quiet rustling of papers. The air was cold, with a distinct aftertaste of ozone from running equipment, soldering rosin, and very strong, bitter coffee, which seemed to be consumed here by the liter. Racks stretched along the walls, cluttered with strange, inconceivable objects: cracked magic crystals, disassembled crossbows, fragments of scale armor. This was the most secret place in the new Russia—"Facility 'Crossroads'," where the country's best minds tried to understand and dissect the laws of the new world.

  "Greetings, Denis Denisovich! Not sleeping?"

  "Greetings, Anatoly Borisovich! No time for sleep when there are so many wonders around!" responded the young, energetic head of the alien technology analysis laboratory without interrupting his work.

  Anatoly Borisovich, a gray-haired man resembling an old, wise bear, the director of the entire complex, approached the huge metal table piled with schematics and artifacts. At that moment, Denis Denisovich, wearing a pristine white coat over a formal shirt, armed with a set of the finest tools and with magnifying loupes on his forehead, was carefully, like a neurosurgeon, disassembling a captured Parpaldian magic arquebus.

  "So, what do you have for today? Any breakthrough on their 'gunpowder'? The General Staff demands an answer: can we reproduce it or not," asked Anatoly Borisovich, his voice low and tired.

  "Regarding the gunpowder—almost finished the analysis. It is... it is something incredible, Anatoly Borisovich. But first, here, take a look," Denis nodded at a neat stack of folders. "Consolidated reports on the analysis of civilizations. Asked for by morning—here, ready."

  Anatoly Borisovich took a hefty folder marked "Top Secret" and began to scan the pages, dotted with graphs, tables, and photocopies of drawings from captured books.

  "Let's see, what do we know at the moment? Briefly. The gist."

  "In brief? We are dealing with a complete technological and cultural zoo," Denis put down the micrometer and enthusiastically picked up his notes. "Take Louria for example: a typical kingdom outside the so-called 'Civilized Lands,' but considering itself a hegemon there. Infantry—swords, shields, composite bows, crossbows. Cavalry in plate armor. By Earth standards—solid High Middle Ages, roughly thirteenth-fourteenth century. Society—rigid feudalism."

  "Ah, so these are the very heroes who planned to conquer Qua-Toyne and Quila," Anatoly said with grim irony.

  "The very ones," nodded Denis. "By the way, a funny detail. I heard some of our soldiers dragged their swords back as trophies. And the most enterprising ones, they say, are already trying to sell them on the black market to collectors. Business is business, even in another world."

  Anatoly Borisovich chuckled without looking up from the documents. The market will always find its niche. It was as immutable a law of nature as gravity.

  "And what is that you have there? Judging by the silhouette—a musket from the Napoleonic Wars era," Anatoly Borisovich asked, drawing attention to the elegant arquebus Denis Denisovich was holding carefully in special antistatic gloves.

  "Anatoly Borisovich, we finally finished! We conducted a complete analysis of the magical muzzle-loading guns of the Parpaldia Empire. And recreated their technology. Look!" he exclaimed, his eyes behind the microscope glasses lighting up with childlike delight.

  "Show me," the director took heavy industrial headphones from the rack.

  Waiting for Anatoly Borisovich to put them on, Denis, like a biathlon athlete, turned to the three-hundred-meter shooting range equipped at the end of the hall. He grasped the carved forestock, tucked the buttstock into his shoulder, cocked the lock with his thumb, and gently squeezed the trigger. There was no spark, no smoke. Instead, the lock flared with a bright, almost white light, a strange, booming clap resembling a whip crack rang out, and a heavy lead bullet, tracing a barely visible thermal trail in the air, hit the bullseye exactly, leaving a ragged hole.

  "Funny... Three hundred meter distance for a smoothbore muzzle-loading arquebus... and such grouping? Do they have rifled barrels? Or some particularly high-quality granulated gunpowder?" Anatoly asked with genuine surprise, lowering the rangefinding binoculars.

  "No, Anatoly Borisovich! That's the whole point!" answered Denis, removing his ballistic glasses. "The barrel is absolutely smooth. And the Parpaldians have no gunpowder. At all. They went down a completely alternative path of development. At the core of their weapons is not a chemical reaction, like ours, but a direct conversion of magical energy."

  He picked up a few grains of gray powder from a Petri dish with tweezers.

  "Firing is achieved thanks to this. 'Magic gunpowder.' It is nothing like ours, based on saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. Here are traces of rare-earth metals not yet identified by us, combined with quartz nanoparticles. Imagine a nanostructure permeated with a network of microscopic channels filled with these crystals. The hammer strike creates a piezoelectric impulse that triggers a chain reaction, releasing accumulated magical energy in the form of a directed impulse. Unlike a chemical explosion, where there is combustion and expansion of gases, here we are dealing with an instantaneous phase transition of mana into kinetic energy. This explains the absence of smoke and the enormous muzzle velocity of the bullet."

  "See this?" Denis pointed with tweezers at a small, dully gleaming, milky-white crystal fixed in the hammer. "This is not flint. We named it a 'piezo-catalytic mana-crystal.' It generates a directed impulse of pure mana under mechanical pressure. It serves as the 'detonator.' Upon striking the steel plate, not a spark arises, but a microscopic yet very intense flash of energy, which triggers the chain reaction in the powder. Therefore, their weapons do not misfire due to moisture and do not require mana expenditure from the shooter themselves."

  "So, every soldier of theirs shoots," stated Anatoly Borisovich.

  "Exactly. But otherwise," continued Denis, "this arquebus suffers from the same 'childhood diseases' as Napoleonic era muskets: monstrously long muzzle reloading, low rate of fire. Although, admittedly, the accuracy for a smoothbore weapon is higher. It seems the Parpaldians, as a civilization, perfected the flintlock technology to the absolute, replacing unpredictable chemistry with predictable magic, but never took the next step—to the unitary cartridge and breech-loading. Their weapon thought simply froze at this stage, like a fly in amber."

  "Interesting... Very interesting," Anatoly Borisovich thoughtfully rubbed his gray beard. "An entire civilization that built a military doctrine on the principle of 'one shot—one kill,' where everything is decided by the first volley. This explains a lot about their psychology and linear infantry tactics. Denis Denisovich, is there anything else as curious? Something that explains their superpower status, rather than just being a regional bully?"

  "There is, Anatoly Borisovich. During the examination of the captured imperial palace in Esthirant, our specialists from the trophy team discovered several samples of experimental rifled weapons in the arsenal. Likely an attempt to copy Mu technologies. Very crude work. We are currently testing them, and I cannot say anything specific yet. But here is what is truly important," Denis moved to another table. On it, under a sealed dome, on an antistatic cushion, lay a large crystal pulsating with an even, deep blue light, dotted with a network of thinnest, almost invisible silver veins. "We have finally fully deciphered the operating principle of their 'Tears of the Wind God'."

  "Ah, those... magical 'engines' that were on their ships?" Anatoly Borisovich's eyes lit up with genuine scientific excitement. Small arms were curious; that was tactics. But this... this was strategy. The fundamental technology that allowed a wooden fleet to dominate the ocean expanses.

  "Yes, you are absolutely right," Denis nodded, and his voice, previously full of enthusiasm, became more serious, almost reverent. "'Tears of the Wind God.' This is not just an artifact. It is the technological and economic basis of their maritime dominance. In essence, it is a highly efficient converter of magical energy into kinetic energy. But unlike a simple mechanical engine, it requires constant 'recharging' with mana."

  He turned on the projector, and a three-dimensional model of the crystal, dotted with glowing lines, appeared on the screen.

  "Imagine a giant battery, Anatoly Borisovich. Only instead of electrons, it accumulates and converts mana particles from the surrounding field. Their master-artificers, using special tools resembling our micromanipulators, literally 'imprint' so-called 'magic circuits' into the crystal lattice. This is their analogue to our printed circuit boards. Their 'software,' if you will."

  "So, it is a programmable crystal? And it works as an energy converter?" clarified Anatoly, leaning forward. Genuine interest lit up in his eyes.

  "Exactly! These circuits are thinnest threads of stabilized magic that create a complex network inside the crystal. Each thread, like a microscopic waveguide or superconductor, accumulates and converts mana into a directed flow of... air. By combining these threads, they can create complex airflow control schemes: changing their strength, direction. From a light breeze filling sails to a hurricane wind which, theoretically, can be used as a weapon."

  "Essentially a solid-state ion engine running on mana," murmured Anatoly. "No moving parts, no fuel as we understand it... Genius. And at the same time—monstrously inefficient in terms of energy density compared to diesel or nuclear power."

  "A perfect analogy!" admired Denis. "But the process of 'programming' itself is something between microsurgery and religious ritual. We studied their tools—thinnest styluses of enchanted metal. Any error in applying the circuit, any violation of the ritual—and the crystal either cracks or, worse, turns into a magic bomb. 'Tears of the Wind God' are not just crystals. They are the pinnacle of their magic engineering, a fragile and dangerous miracle."

  "And, as I understand, our main tactical target in naval combat," Anatoly said thoughtfully, looking at the captured, already 'spent' and dimmed crystal lying on the table.

  "Yes, Anatoly Borisovich. In combat with their fleet, destroying the 'engine' is the fastest and most effective way to neutralize a ship. Having lost power, it turns into a stationary target. This confirms that, despite all the magic, the basic laws of war—'deprive the enemy of mobility, then destroy'—remain unchanged in any universe."

  Anatoly Borisovich nodded silently. They created an elegant but fragile system. Powerful against equals, but with a fatal vulnerability. They built a glass sword... he thought.

  "Furthermore, Anatoly Borisovich, we were particularly interested in the pinnacle of their naval thought. Their so-called 'Dragon Carriers'," Denis switched the projector slide. Now a three-dimensional model of a Parpaldian "aircraft carrier" slowly rotated on the screen. It looked like a clumsy hybrid of a galleon and a modern barge: a massive, wide wooden hull, practically devoid of superstructures, crowned with a huge, flat flight deck.

  "Essentially, these are 'motherships for wyverns'," continued Denis. "Floating airfields for biological aviation. Judging by captured blueprints and our satellite images, their length varies from 80 to 120 meters. The air group is 15 to 20 wyverns, for which special landing nests and lifting platforms on the sides are equipped on the deck. The construction, as you can see, is mainly wooden. But key elements—keel, frames, waterline—are reinforced with sheets of that same anti-magic steel. Vulnerability in close combat is colossal; they have almost no artillery armament of their own, so they always operate under the cover of a powerful escort of ships of the line. This is the pinnacle of their shipbuilding. And it," Denis stumbled for a moment, "it represents an engineering nightmare. From our, Earthly, point of view."

  Anatoly Borisovich silently looked at the model.

  "Building an aircraft carrier out of wood. It's like trying to assemble a spaceship out of plywood. But they do it. And, apparently, it works. In their conditions."

  "Exactly! And their artillery..." Denis displayed a table with ballistic calculations on a nearby monitor. "Their cannons are smoothbore, yes. But due to the higher efficiency of magic gunpowder, the initial velocity of the cannonball and penetration ability are about 30-40% higher than the best ship guns of our early 19th century. The guys from the ballistics department and I ran a simulation on our 'Lomonosov'. Simulated a naval battle: Trafalgar, 1805. Admiral Nelson's British fleet against a Parpaldian squadron of the same tonnage."

  "And what are the results?" asked Anatoly.

  "Crushing defeat for Nelson," replied Denis without a shadow of a smile. "Even with perfect tactics. 'Tears of the Wind God' would give the Parpaldians an absolute advantage in speed and maneuverability, allowing them to choose the distance and angle of attack. And the power of their artillery would turn their volleys into a fiery hell that would smash the sides of British ships like eggshells. The conclusion is unambiguous: if the Empire of Parpaldia by some miracle appeared on Earth in the 18th century, it would have become the undisputed ruler of the seas. No earthly empire could have withstood it."

  Anatoly Borisovich frowned gloomily, realizing the depth of this conclusion.

  "So, we fought not just with a 'backward country', but with a civilization that was an absolute hegemon in its technological niche," he said hollowly. "And that's not all, I assume?"

  "Unfortunately, no, Anatoly Borisovich," said Denis quietly, and his voice, previously full of scientific excitement, became serious and almost grim. The number 4,000,000 was displayed on the last slide. "Their most terrible trump card is not technology. It is people. With total mobilization, the Empire of Parpaldia was capable of fielding four million soldiers. Yes, at the cost of total economic collapse. But they could do it."

  Anatoly Borisovich was silent, but his face darkened. Four million. That was an army from World War II times. Poorly armed, yes. But it could simply be drowned in blood, and it would still continue to advance.

  "And their second trump card," continued Denis, "is the perfect symbiosis of their army with local fauna. Wyverns and Land Dragons. Imagine an 18th-century battlefield. Artillery and muskets simply wouldn't have time to accurately hit Wyvern Lords circling in the sky at an unreachable altitude and methodically, volley after volley, unleashing their fireballs, burning out entire battalions. And when the infantry is broken, Land Dragons come into play, their living battering rams that sweep away the remnants of resistance and break through any fortification. It is a simple, brutal, but incredibly effective tactic. They combined the discipline of Napoleon's linear infantry with the firepower of mythical beasts."

  Denis turned off the projector, and the laboratory plunged into semi-darkness.

  "Therefore, Anatoly Borisovich, we should not underestimate them. We defeated not 'primitive savages.' We defeated a monstrous predator perfectly adapted to its world. And we won only because we turned out to be a predator from another, more terrifying world."

  "Denis Denisovich, let's return to details. What can you say about the combat characteristics of their main air unit? About wyverns?" inquired Anatoly Borisovich, returning to specifics.

  "Anatoly Borisovich, we conducted a full autopsy and biochemical analysis of several captured specimens. Locals call their attack a 'magic fire bullet,' but, as always, complex physics and chemistry hide behind magic," Denis switched the slide to an animated diagram of a wyvern's anatomy.

  "They have a specialized binary organ located in the larynx area. Two separate glands. One produces a viscous, high-polymer substance based on phosphines and organosilicon compounds—essentially natural napalm, self-igniting in air. The second produces concentrated acid, serving simultaneously as a catalyst and an oxidizer. Before attacking, the wyvern, using wind magic, creates a powerful directed stream of air in its mouth—a sort of gas gun. This stream, passing through the glands, captures micro-portions of both components, mixes them into an aerosol cloud, and ignites them. The result is not just a jet of flame, but precisely a plasma clot that flies like an artillery shell."

  "So the process depends entirely on head position?" clarified Anatoly, raising an eyebrow.

  "Exactly so. For an accurate shot, the wyvern must stretch its neck and fix the position. It cannot shoot to the sides or back. Only straight ahead. This is their key tactical weakness. In aerial combat, they have to maneuver their whole body to aim at the target, making them extremely clumsy compared to our aircraft, where guns can be mounted on movable turrets, not to mention homing missiles."

  "Sounds rather inconvenient. Just like the first fighters of the early 20th century with synchronizers shooting through the propeller," noted Anatoly, rubbing his chin. "Very limited firing sector."

  "Absolutely correct. They are a formidable weapon for bombing ground targets, but in maneuvering aerial combat against a technologically superior opponent—they are simply flying targets."

  "What about their flight characteristics? How do these hulks stay in the air at all?"

  "And here, Anatoly Borisovich, begins the most interesting part," Denis switched the slide to a model of the skeleton and muscular system of a wyvern. "Their flight is a unique symbiosis of crude biomechanics and subtle magic. The wingspan of a standard specimen is about 10-12 meters. This allows them to reach speeds up to 235 km/h. This is not magic. This is pure aerodynamics provided by incredibly powerful pectoral muscles and a light but strong skeleton. We discovered that their bones have a hollow, cellular structure, like our birds, but they are reinforced with mineral inclusions the animal obtains with food from rocks. These minerals are essentially passive mana-accumulators that make bones simultaneously light and incredibly resistant to loads."

  "So they have a natural composite material in their skeleton?"

  "Exactly! But for takeoff, they typically need a run-up on a dirt strip—at least 80-100 meters to gain necessary speed. The only exception—the one flown by mercenary Muller. They have a genetic mutation allowing the use of wind magic to create a momentary lifting cushion. Essentially, a natural analogue of our VTOL. But this is extremely rare."

  "And what about Wyvern Lords? They are significantly faster, aren't they?"

  "Yes. We studied them too. This is a product of purposeful selection. They are larger, more muscular, their metabolism is boosted to the limit. Maximum speed—up to 360 km/h. But a price has to be paid for this. Firstly, loss of fertility. Apparently, they can produce offspring only once in a lifetime. Secondly, they have a monstrous 'appetite.' To maintain such metabolism, they require not just meat, but special feed mixtures enriched with those same magical minerals. Without 'special rations,' their combat characteristics drop by half in a couple of days."

  "So, their elite aviation depends entirely on logistics and resource base?" notes of professional satisfaction sounded in Anatoly's voice.

  "Absolutely," confirmed Denis. "Their recovery of mana and 'fuel substance' for a fire attack also requires at least a day of rest. They are living beings. They get tired, sick, can be intimidated. Their scales, capable of withstanding an arrow or musket ball, are easily pierced by our large-caliber 12.7mm round. And against the kinetic energy of a missile—they are just a bag of meat and bones. In general, the conclusion is this: wyverns are an ideal weapon for colonial wars against primitive armies. But against any modern, even not the most advanced, air defense system, their time is irrevocably gone."

  "Yes, sounds like a flying evolutionary dead end," Anatoly Borisovich shook his head thoughtfully. "And what about their 'heavy armor'? Land dragons?"

  "Here, Anatoly Borisovich, everything is much more interesting," Denis switched the slide. Now a massive, squat figure of a lindwurm slowly rotated above the table. "Land dragons, or as locals call them, 'earth dragons'—are endemic to the Parpaldia Empire, result of centuries of selection. Essentially, they are huge, wingless creatures resembling a chimeric hybrid of a snapping turtle and ankylosaurus, but twice the size of an African elephant. They are their answer to our tank. And, admittedly, for their level of technology—a brilliant answer."

  Key points were highlighted on the interactive board.

  "The armor is not just chitin. It is a multilayer organic composite. The outer layer consists of keratinized plates capable of deflecting arrows and even crossbow bolts. Underneath is a porous bone structure dampening the kinetic energy of impact like active armor. It is absolutely invulnerable to cold weapons and extremely resistant to primitive firearms. Their muskets can wound it but not stop it."

  "And armament?" asked Anatoly.

  "Ability to exhale flame," answered Denis. "And judging by the analysis of residual radiation on captured armor, it is not just fire. It is a jet of superheated plasma. Parpaldians even developed additional steel armor for them but use it rarely, mainly in the capital guard. They can transport troops on their back and tow heavy artillery. This is their universal combat platform: tank, IFV, and tractor in one."

  "In other words, the ideal weapon for their era," concluded Anatoly.

  "Exactly! If Napoleon had a regiment of such beasts at Austerlitz, the history of Europe would have taken a completely different path," agreed Denis. "In a 19th-century war, they would have been a formidable force. But against 20th-century technologies..." he brought up a recording from a Special Operations Forces fighter's helmet cam near Altaras. It showed a 'Kornet' ATGM missile hitting a lindwurm's side. The organic composite, perfectly adapted for protection against swords and arrows, was simply not designed to meet a shaped charge jet burning through a meter of steel. In the recording, the armored carcass simply burst, flying apart into pieces of meat and bone.

  "...and against 21st-century technologies," finished Denis, turning off the projector, "they don't stand a chance."

  "Thank you for the comprehensive report on Parpaldia, Denis Denisovich. Now—to the main point," Anatoly Borisovich put the folder aside.

  "What data on the Holy Mirishial Empire?"

  "Before we move on to the 'black box' called Mirishial," said Anatoly Borisovich, "there is one more question haunting our metallurgists. 'Magic metals'. Orichalcum, mithril, adamantite."

  Denis Denisovich nodded and walked to another lab stand.

  "More than real, Anatoly Borisovich. But, as always in this world, everything turned out to be simultaneously simpler and more complex than in legends."

  He displayed mass spectrometry and X-ray diffraction analysis data on the nearest screen.

  "Let's start with 'Orichalcum'," he pointed to a golden ingot. "According to legends—metal of gods. In reality... it is a complex intermetallic alloy based on titanium (about 70%), aluminum (25%) and alloying additions—yttrium and scandium. Essentially, a natural analogue of our gamma-titanium aluminide, which we use on Earth in aircraft engine turbine blades. Exceptionally light, heat-resistant, with highest corrosion resistance."

  "Titanium aluminide?!" astonishment reflected on Anatoly Borisovich's face. "But its synthesis requires vacuum induction furnaces and temperatures near 1600 degrees! How do dwarves in Quila smelt it in their primitive forges?"

  "They don't smelt it!" the excitement of a discoverer sounded in Denis's voice. "That's the 'magic'. Their ore contains a unique symbiotic microorganism. An extremophile archaeon we named Metallurgus arcanum. This bacterium, in the process of its life activity, at a temperature of only 600-700 degrees and the presence of a weak, resonating magical field, acts as a biological catalyst. It creates conditions at the micro-level for solid-phase reactions to occur, allowing metals to fuse at temperatures hundreds of times lower than required by our laws of chemistry! For them, dwarves simply create the 'atmosphere'."

  "Incredible..." exhaled Anatoly.

  "The story with 'Mithril' is even more interesting," Denis pointed to a silvery elven armor. "This is not metal. It is a metal matrix composite. The base is a magnesium-lithium alloy, almost weightless. But single-crystal whiskers of silicon carbide, or, as locals would say, 'mountain spirit hairs', are woven into its crystal lattice. They are what give it strength superior to our best armor steel."

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  "How do they do it? Bacteria too?"

  "No. Here—pure magic. Dwarven smith-mages use 'metal weaving' spells. They literally grow these single-crystal 'whiskers' inside the melt, controlling their growth and orientation. Each such armor is a unique, grown artifact. We cannot reproduce this without magic."

  "And finally, 'Adamantite'," Denis moved to a dark fragment of a sword. "By composition—a tungsten alloy with the addition of unknown transuranic elements absent in our periodic table. But its main feature is structure. At the atomic level, it has not a crystal lattice, but... something our nuclear physicists stammeringly call 'stabilized degenerate matter'. Its density is tens of times higher than osmium. It is almost unmachinable and very scarce."

  "So, it is material from a neutron star?" asked Anatoly.

  "Roughly speaking, yes. Only stabilized somehow. We don't yet understand how it can exist at all. There is a hypothesis that this is not a natural metal, but a fragment of some ancient Ravernal artifact. Only thing we know for sure: any adamantite blade can pierce any armor. And any armor made of it is almost invulnerable. Fortunately for us, its amount in this world is negligible. Otherwise, our war with Louria would have looked completely different."

  Anatoly Borisovich nodded silently, his gaze thoughtful.

  And all this leads us to the main question. What about the true hegemon of this world? What about the Holy Mirishial Empire? Judging by reports, they are the only ones who could not just know about such materials, but be able to work with them at a system level. What do we know about them?

  "Here, Anatoly Borisovich, we enter the realm of guesswork, espionage, and indirect analysis," Denis sighed, and his voice became more serious. "As you know, until we get at least one captured sample, all we have is remote observation data. But even that... makes you think."

  He displayed several blurred, max-zoomed satellite images of ships anchored in Runepolis on the projector screen.

  "Here. Their famous 'Zero Magic Fleet'. The pinnacle of their naval achievements. In tonnage, silhouette, and purpose—analogues of our battleships and cruisers from World War II. Armed with multi-barreled gun turrets. But look at the design..."

  The ships in the pictures looked like something from futuristic movies: smooth, streamlined hulls without a single seam, strange glowing panels, absence of anchors and smokestacks.

  "We need at least one sample, Anatoly Borisovich! Even one bolt from their hull!" Denis said with desperation in his voice. "Drawing conclusions from these photos is like trying to recreate an internal combustion engine from a cave painting. It's not just about materials. We need to understand exactly how magic is woven into their engineering! How do they create alloys that glow? How do their engines work if they have no propellers or jet streams? We need data on alloy composition, energy signatures, enchantment methods... Without samples, this is all reading tea leaves."

  "You will have samples, Denis Denisovich," Anatoly said quietly but with icy confidence. "You will. I have already sent a corresponding request to General Pavlov at the SVR. Our 'tourists' in Cartalpas are getting bored."

  He understood he was asking for the impossible. But he also knew that for the Foreign Intelligence Service, impossible tasks don't exist. There are only tasks requiring more time and resources.

  "And what can you say about the Gra-Valkas Empire?" said Anatoly Borisovich, new, harsh notes sounding in his voice.

  "Aggressive, expansionist, and, most importantly, technologically advanced power," Denis began clearly, as if reporting to the General Staff. "Their technological level is the middle of our 20th century. World War II at its apogee. They pose a direct and clear threat to us, and we must be extremely careful with them. While we spent a year and a half 'coddling' the locals, trying to build diplomacy, Gra-Valkas took the bull by the horns immediately."

  "There were reasons for that, Denis Denisovich. It wasn't just aggression for aggression's sake," objected Anatoly. "As reported by the SVR, their first diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Paganda ended with the local duke insulting their ambassador, who, by unfortunate coincidence, turned out to be the emperor's son. The duke, in a fit of pride, ordered him hanged. After that, Gra-Valkas stopped 'coddling'. They slaughtered the entire ruling elite of Paganda, and crucified that duke in the central square of his own capital. Brutal, but... illustrative."

  "Interesting..." chuckled Denis. "So their aggression is a reaction to an insult to honor? That explains a lot. Mentality more of a militaristic empire of the early 20th century rather than Nazi Germany. Valuable information. Seems laws work here that are not only scientific but also, shall we say, 'conceptual'."

  "Exactly. So what about their technologies? Besides a nasty temper."

  "Everything is like in history textbooks, Anatoly Borisovich," replied Denis, displaying a massive silhouette of a giant ship on the projector screen. "Here. Fleet flagship, super-dreadnought 'Grade Atlastar', almost exact copy of Japanese battleship 'Yamato'. Nine 460mm main battery guns, powerful belt armor, own air group of piston catapult reconnaissance seaplanes. We also recorded presence of submarines. Judging by speed and need to surface for battery charging—classic diesel-electric submarines. Plus, most importantly, according to surviving Leiforians, their anti-aircraft shells explode before reaching the target, covering wyverns with a cloud of shrapnel. This indicates presence of proximity radio fuzes, meaning—they have radio electronics. Primitive, tube-based, but they have it. They have entered the radio-electronic era."

  "In other words, an opponent of 1944-45 level. Very serious. By standards of this world—practically gods," stated Anatoly.

  "Exactly. But by our standards—this is all a floating museum."

  "Wow, seeing an almost real 'Yamato' in this world. Truly, floating antique. But still..." chuckled Anatoly. "Purely hypothetically, Denis Denisovich. Simulate a clash for me. Their best carrier strike group against one of our modern frigates. What would it look like?"

  Denis thought for a moment, then a cold spark of a military analyst calculating options flashed in his eyes.

  "It wouldn't be a clash, Anatoly Borisovich. It would be remote destruction. Let's break it down by stages. Start with underwater threat. Our multi-purpose nuclear submarine of project 'Yasen-M', running at depth of four hundred meters, will hear their diesel submarines hundreds of kilometers away thanks to their unique acoustic signature. 'Yasen' won't even need to approach. One volley of 'Kalibr-PL' cruise missiles from submerged position, surfacing tens of kilometers from target—and their entire squadron ceases to exist without even understanding who hit them and from where."

  "Okay, take submarines out of equation. Only surface forces. For example, our frigate of project 22350 'Admiral Gorshkov' against their 'Yamato' accompanied by cruisers."

  "Same scenario. 'Gorshkov' will detect them with its 'Poliment' phased array radar 400 kilometers away. At such distance they won't see it even with best telescope. Then, from 300 kilometers, it strikes with hypersonic 'Zircons'. Two-three missiles per target. Their main guns, remind you, hit max at 42 kilometers. While their shells fly to us for several minutes, our missiles already hit targets. We'll be shooting them like in a gallery, being far beyond their reach."

  "And their aviation? Recon seaplanes? They will try to find us."

  "As soon as their catapult works, our shipborne SAM 'Redut' will lock onto slow piston plane and shoot it down with medium-range anti-aircraft missile. Plus, and this is main thing—EW systems. Moment their ships turn on primitive radars, our EW complexes simply 'burn' them with jamming, blinding completely. They won't even be able to aim. They have not a single chance, Anatoly Borisovich. This is not war. It is execution."

  "But purely theoretically, Denis Denisovich. Can their submarines create real problems for us? Unguided torpedo launched from underwater is still serious threat," persisted Anatoly Borisovich, whose thoroughness was legendary.

  "Theoretically yes. If we, turning off all our systems and walking blind, allow them to approach torpedo salvo distance, like in old WW2 movies," chuckled Denis. "But in reality this won't happen. Their diesel-electric submarine by acoustic metrics is a roaring tractor compared to our nuclear missile carriers. Our ship sonar complex 'Zarya' will 'hear' it tens, if not hundreds of kilometers away. While they try to approach, Ka-27 ASW helicopter already takes off from our frigate deck, sets barrier of sonobuoys, pinpoints exact location and strikes with homing anti-submarine torpedo. They simply have no chance to sneak up unnoticed. We will hunt them like blind whales."

  "Good. Clear with that. And if their battleships, using, for example, bad weather or smoke screen, still break through to artillery combat distance? Direct clash, broadside to broadside, like Tsushima times."

  "Even in this absolutely fantastic scenario, they lose, Anatoly Borisovich," Denis displayed diagram of modern SAM work on screen. "Their shells are just chunks of metal flying on predictable ballistic trajectory. Our shipborne SAMs like 'Redut' or 'Pantsir-M' were originally created to intercept supersonic anti-ship missiles. Intercepting subsonic artillery slug for them is trivial task. We simply put up impenetrable air defense dome over squadron. But will their fire control systems based on primitive radars and optical rangefinders be able to shoot down our hypersonic, maneuvering, sea-skimming missile? Answer is obvious. In direct combat they also lose, just this fight will last few minutes longer."

  "Turns out, despite all their aggression and outwardly impressive fleet, Gra-Valkas is vastly inferior to us in military tech?" summarized Anatoly, poorly concealed relief sounding in his voice.

  "Exactly so. Their submarines and battleships are formidable force for this world. They could become problem even for fleets of mid-20th century. But against Russian ships of 21st century they have no chances. However," Denis became serious for a moment, taking off his glasses, "we shouldn't underestimate them. Unlike Parpaldians and Mirishials, they think like us. They understand strategy, logistics, intelligence, disinformation. They are chess players, not checkers players like others. And I don't think they are stupid enough to attack without preliminary finding out real strength of opponent. It is their intellect and rationality, not technologies, that make them truly dangerous. And unpredictable."

  "True enough," thoughtfully agreed Anatoly Borisovich. "Means we need to be ready for provocations and hybrid threats." He nodded, closing topic for himself, and was about to head to exit. "Thank you, Denis Denisovich. Report is comprehensive."

  "Anatoly Borisovich, wait," Denis stopped him just as the director grasped the door handle. "That's not all. There is data from Calamique."

  Anatoly Borisovich turned around, his hand freezing. "Calamique? That isolated island in the middle of nowhere? What could possibly be interesting there after Gra-Valkas battleships?"

  Denis Denisovich silently approached the console and turned on the projector.

  "There, Anatoly Borisovich, we encountered operational weapons of the Ancient Ravernal Empire for the very first time. Not dusty ruins and not fragments. Working combat systems," the young scientist's voice grew frighteningly quiet. "And I will add: we didn't just receive captured samples. The man who brought these machines back to life, Archmage Ordo, is currently being interrogated two floors below us. For the first time, we are not just reading the instruction manual—we are conversing with the engineer."

  A three-dimensional model appeared on the screen. A bulky, angular armored hull on a six-wheeled chassis. Zero aesthetics—just the pure, crude functionality of a siege engine.

  "A 'Magitank'," Denis explained. "That is our internal SVR classification. The local rebels called them 'Demon Flame Tanks'. From an engineering standpoint, it's a mechanic's nightmare. But from a magical one, it's a devilishly effective killing machine."

  The image switched to a cross-section of the armor.

  "The armor is not just iron. It's a composite. The outer layer is steel alloyed with magic obsidian and covered with a complex web of runes. These runes do not reflect magical energy; they absorb it, redistribute it across the hull, and vent it as excess heat through the underbelly. That is exactly why the Parpaldian Wyvern Lords couldn't leave a single scratch on them. Their magical flame was simply soaked up by the tank. The crew of four mages inside does not act as the engine, but rather as reactor operators."

  "And how did our Ka-52s crack them open if the armor is so good?" Anatoly Borisovich narrowed his eyes.

  "The anatomy of vulnerability," Denis smiled predatorily. "Ravernal tanks were designed as machines to breach ground fortress walls. The Ravernals apparently had absolute air superiority, so... they didn't even think about roof protection. The top armor thickness is three times thinner than the frontal plate, and the maximum elevation angle of their main caliber is 30 degrees! They were physically incapable of shooting at the sky."

  Denis brought up the thermal imaging recording from the helicopter onto the screen.

  "Our pilots instantly calculated this blind spot. They hovered directly above them and struck with Vikhr-1 ATGMs. The shaped-charge jet hit the thin roof. The rate of energy release during the tandem charge explosion exceeded the rune matrix's bandwidth by orders of magnitude. The runes simply 'choked'. The shaped-charge jet burned through the hull and detonated the magical accumulators inside. The machine incinerated in a fraction of a second. The vulnerability was not coincidental—it was structural."

  "Impressive. And what about their 'main caliber'?"

  "A plasma cannon accelerating clots of super-compressed mana on the principle of a magnetic catapult. The temperature at the epicenter is over three thousand degrees Celsius. Conclusion: for the armies of this world, it is a doomsday weapon. For us, it's a slow-moving, blind-from-above target with a gigantic thermal signature. Archmage Ordo, sitting downstairs, was in absolute shock. He thought he had unearthed the power of the gods, but it turned out he was just a caveman who found a nuclear bomb and decided to use it to hammer nails. He didn't even understand the physics of what he was operating."

  "Let's move on. What is this gigantism?" Anatoly Borisovich nodded at the next image.

  "And this, local legends call the 'Diobehemoth'." A model of a twenty-meter, multi-limbed monster slowly rotated on the screen. "Estimated mass—up to three thousand tons. A living siege tower. Silicon-based biological armor, active regeneration. Superficial wounds close right before your eyes. A direct hit from a kinetic munition to the dorsal carapace would only result in a ricochet."

  Denis played a video from a Ka-52 pilot's helmet camera.

  "Our guys worked with surgical precision. Pay attention to the small dot circling in front of the muzzle of this mountain. That is contractor Muller on a wyvern. What's more, the wyvern already had a torn shoulder from a previous aerial dogfight. Muller knew the required geometry: to destroy the beast, they needed to reach its internal organs through the soft tissues under the jaw. He executed a provocation run under fire, forcing the monster to raise its head and open its maw. The clearance between the creature's tail and the wyvern's belly on the exit was eight meters at best. A suicidal maneuver, but it gifted our pilots a three-second window."

  The footage slowed down. Four 'Ataka' missiles flew right into the monster's wide-open, roaring maw.

  "Thermobaric warheads, Anatoly Borisovich. The volumetric detonation explosion occurred directly inside the ribcage. The aerosol cloud burned up all the oxygen, turning the creature's lungs and mana-heart into a bloody vapor. We didn't bother trying to pierce the armor from the outside. We deconstructed its anatomy from the inside."

  Anatoly Borisovich nodded approvingly. The tactics were admirable in their brutal rationality.

  "And finally, their aviation. 'Fire Birds'," Denis displayed an image of a giant red bird on the screen. "A flying truck. The speed is laughable—up to 210 km/h in a dive. But the main thing is their weapon. To spit out a stream of napalm, their mana-gland heats up to monstrous temperatures."

  Denis tapped his finger on the screen.

  "For the thermal homing seekers of our 'Igla-V' anti-aircraft missiles and the helicopters' targeting complexes, they lit up on the sensors brighter than the sun! The Ka-52 pilots didn't even need to maneuver. The onboard computers locked onto the targets automatically. And the 30-millimeter 2A42 automatic cannon didn't just turn them into Swiss cheese. The armor-piercing incendiary shells pierced their ribcages and ignited the mana reserves inside the birds themselves. They exploded in mid-air from their own weapons."

  Denis turned off the projector and leaned heavily on the table.

  "The conclusion regarding Calamique, Anatoly Borisovich. The rebel Hamman used these technologies like a battering ram from the past. This proves one of two things: either the locals got their hands on the most primitive, defective Ravernal prototypes, or Ravernal was so confident in their magic that they completely ignored the laws of physics, ballistics, and aerodynamics. For the level of the Middle Ages, these beasts and tanks are an apocalypse. For our attack helicopters, it's just a noisy, overheated testing ground for practicing missile launches."

  "Is the threat eliminated?" the director asked dryly.

  "On the battlefield—yes. The rebels are crushed, the remnants of the beasts scattered into the forests. But the knowledge... the knowledge remains in the head of Archmage Ordo. And judging by the operatives' reports, he is ready to cooperate. As our diplomat Orlov put it: 'we are conducting a brain extraction operation'. We will lock this genius in a special research institute near Novosibirsk, give him microscopes instead of rune wands, and force him to decrypt everything he managed to read in those ruins for us."

  Anatoly Borisovich remained silent. His face resembled a granite mask.

  "So, Gra-Valkas is not the main threat," he stated hollowly.

  "Gra-Valkas is an understandable threat," Denis corrected. "They are from our past. We know how to fight them. But the Ravernal Empire... It seems they are from our future, one that took the path of magical genetic engineering and a runic singularity."

  "I understand you, Denis Denisovich," the director sighed heavily and adjusted his collar. "Compile a full brief. I will report to the very top. The Kremlin needs to clearly understand that this world is not a medieval sandbox. And that the true masters of these technologies might return one day."

  With these words, he said his goodbyes and headed for the exit. The analysis was finished. A big, complex, and truly terrifying game was just beginning.

  Thirty minutes later. Scientific Research Complex No. 2, "Quantum Horizon."

  "Greetings, Alexey Mikhailovich."

  "Anatoly Borisovich, come in," the office's owner, a thin, energetic man with eternally disheveled hair and the burning eyes of a theorist, gestured to an armchair. "Coffee? Cognac? Or straight to business?"

  "Coffee. And straight to business," replied Anatoly without a shadow of a smile.

  After the secretary silently brought in two cups of aromatic espresso and just as silently disappeared, Anatoly Borisovich began without preamble.

  "Lyosha, any progress on the 'Qua-Toyne precedent'?"

  "Are you talking about our fighter?"

  "Yes. The leadership in the Kremlin is very concerned. They cannot understand how a Soviet MiG-15 ended up here eighty years before us. There isn't a single document in the Podolsk archives about a missing plane. No information. Absolute zero! Ideally, the FSB should be dealing with this, not us. However..." Anatoly pointed a meaningful finger at the ceiling, "'up there,' they decided otherwise. In short, they want you—I quote—'at any cost and in the shortest possible time, to develop technology for creating a stable portal to Earth for the evacuation of the country's top leadership in case of unforeseen circumstances'."

  Alexey Mikhailovich choked on his hot coffee and coughed.

  "We are totally screwed on that front, Tolya!" Alexey Mikhailovich almost shouted. "Are they out of their minds?! 'A stable portal to Earth'?! You must understand, we are trying to teach quantum mechanics to people who, before us, considered lightning the wrath of gods! Yes, we work with their best archmages. But that is like trying to explain the structure of the Large Hadron Collider to Leonardo da Vinci! He is a genius, he will understand the basics, but he cannot build it! And the leadership wants a ready-made solution from us yesterday! Do they have any idea what the transfer of a continental plate with all infrastructure, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere means?! In terms of energy conservation laws—this is an event comparable to a supernova explosion! I don't know WHO or WHAT dragged us here, but it wanted something from us. We are not here by accident."

  He fell silent for a moment, approaching the window, beyond which the sterile buildings of his research center could be seen.

  "We ran extensive simulations, Anatoly. We ran all possible transfer scenarios through 'Peresvet'. And do you know what we found?"

  Anatoly Borisovich, sipping his already cold coffee, looked at him silently, his gaze expressing a silent question: What?

  "According to all our probability models, in ninety-nine point nine percent of cases, we all should have died in the first ten seconds!" Alexey turned around, a feverish fire burning in his eyes. "From monstrous cataclysms caused by a sharp gravitational shift. From the harsh cosmic radiation of the local star. From instant decompression due to the difference in atmospheric pressure! Our very appearance here should have caused a megatsunami several kilometers high, which would have washed away all life from the nearest continents! But none of this happened. Nothing! And that, Tolya, is the scariest part. This proves that our transfer was not a natural disaster, but a high-precision surgical operation. Someone used technology that we, for lack of better terms, can roughly describe as the creation of a 'stable zone' or a 'space-time bubble'."

  He walked to his interactive whiteboard and brought up a complex, flickering diagram.

  "Our sensors confirm: we are still inside a kind of quasi-stationary field. It envelops our entire territory, strictly along the borders of 2027. This field is not just a barrier. It is a perfect quarantine cocoon. We observe that our earthly pathogens—flu, ARVI, even the common cold—practically do not go beyond its limits. Locals do not get infected by them. And vice versa—local diseases cannot survive in it. Our 'bubble' possesses the property of active biofiltration, preventing the exchange of genetic material."

  "Moreover! The anomalous behavior of climate systems is direct proof of this theory. Murmansk is tropical now! The climate there has completely changed; the field obviously adapted to the local equatorial latitudes. But in the rest of Russia—the autumn, winter, summer we are used to! This is impossible from the standpoint of physics! Not to mention that not a single city was destroyed, not a single ship sank. The field didn't just transport us. It compensated for all potential deformations, preserving the integrity of every molecule! This goes beyond everything we know!"

  "Do you understand where I am going with this, Anatoly? We are not dealing with technology. We are dealing with a miracle. Or something indistinguishable from a miracle."

  Anatoly Borisovich remained silent, slowly leaning back in his chair. His face, usually expressing only tired confidence, was now pale.

  "Who..." he finally said hollowly, "what higher power cut us out of our world with such surgical precision? And most importantly—why?"

  "Exactly, Tolya! That is the main question!" exclaimed Alexey. "All my life I was a staunch atheist, but now... now even I am ready to believe in a creator. And we better not anger this higher power. Every person in Russia right now is a living witness to its might. So when I hear from the leadership about a 'portal to Earth'... it's absurd. We, with all our knowledge and their archmages, are currently trying to open a portal at least the size of a chicken egg. And so far unsuccessfully. And they want an 'evacuation of the leadership'!"

  "I understand, Lyosha. I will relay everything to them. In my own words," Anatoly said gloomily.

  "There is also some other interesting news. From the third complex. About Ravernal."

  "What is it?" he asked, taking a sip of the last, now cold drop of coffee.

  "Remember the mines in Kar-Amik? On the territory of the Holy Mirishial Empire?"

  "Yes, I remember. Our geologists agreed with the local duke on the joint development of rare earth metals. A successful cover," Anatoly nodded.

  "Not just successful. It brought us the jackpot," said Alexey, and his voice became serious. "Artur Igorevich's research group, working there undercover as geologists, stumbled upon an abandoned, sealed complex of ancient ruins. And do you know what they discovered there?"

  "What?"

  "Technical documentation for their analogue of nuclear weapons. Those ruins belonged to the Ancient Magical Empire of Ravernal. And apparently, this weapon was used in that ancient war against the Dragon Empire."

  Anatoly Borisovich froze with the cup in his hand. Higher powers, portals, a MiG-15... All of that was abstract. But weapons of mass destruction—that was his reality. A reality he had lived with all his life since the Cold War. And a familiar, icy chill ran down his spine from this reality.

  "Here, look for yourself," Alexey brought up images transmitted by Artur Igorevich's group on the main projector. In the highest resolution, ancient stone tablets were visible, dotted with complex, alien symbols and diagrams resembling both ballistic missile blueprints and an astrological chart.

  "Among the finds are hollow stone cylinders, clearly casings, and this—a stone tablet, their 'instruction manual'. Our crypto-linguists have already deciphered the key points. This is 'Core Magic'," said Alexey quietly, as if afraid of the word itself.

  He zoomed in on the central part of the diagram. It depicted a cylinder inside which, like a nesting doll, concentric spheres were arranged.

  "Externally—it is an analogue of our intercontinental ballistic missile. A strong, streamlined body made of an alloy unknown to us, resistant to extreme loads. Aerodynamic stabilizers. But inside... inside everything is different, Tolya."

  Anatoly Borisovich peered silently, almost hypnotically, at the image.

  "Looks like an implosion scheme, like in 'Fat Man'. Compressing shell, reflector... but what do they have instead of a plutonium core?" he muttered.

  "Exactly! The principle is the same, but the 'fuel' is different!" confirmed Alexey with grim delight. "Instead of a nuclear or thermonuclear warhead, they have a complex multilayer structure which they themselves call an 'aether core' in their texts. The process begins with the activation of a magic detonator. Ordinary explosives, enhanced by 'explosion magic', synchronously detonate external charges. Shock waves, focused and amplified by rune engraving on the inner surface of the casing, compress the core from all sides. The inscription on the tablet reads: 'A cascade of events beyond control'. The pressure reaches millions of atmospheres, like in the epicenter of a nuclear explosion. But instead of a uranium fission chain reaction or thermonuclear fusion, what occurs is what we tentatively named 'cascade ether collapse', or simply put, magical fission."

  "Magical fission? What kind of term is that, Lyosha?" Anatoly frowned.

  "Ours, a working term. Because this is not physics, at least not the kind we know," Alexey began to pace around the office. "Unlike our atomic weapons, where colossal energy is released from bonds inside the atomic nucleus, here it is released from the bonds of the magic field itself! Do you understand? An 'aether core' is essentially a piece of space in which magical energy is artificially 'crystallized' and stabilized in an unstable state. It's like storing antimatter in a magnetic field, only here everything is more complicated. Under monstrous pressure, these crystalline lattices of magic break down, and all the energy stored in them, all the potential energy of this field, instantly converts into kinetic and thermal energy."

  "Wait, Lyosha, are you saying they use some analogue of an implosion nuclear charge? With magical fission?" interrupted Anatoly, furrowing his brow. His nuclear engineer's mind refused to believe what he was hearing.

  "The analogy is correct, but the essence is more monstrous, Tolya. In a sense, yes—it is magical fission. But they are not splitting the atom," answered Alexey. "They know how to split the very fabric of magic, their 'aether core', creating an energy release that makes our thermonuclear warheads look like crude clubs. And the most terrifying thing..." he displayed a graph analyzing the consequences of a hypothetical explosion. "...there is neither penetrating radiation nor radioactive contamination of the area. At all. Only pure, concentrated, all-consuming energy. And although, according to our preliminary calculations, the power of such an explosion can reach 50 megatons of TNT equivalent—that is almost like our 'Tsar Bomba'—the damaging factor is not nuclear physics. They transform the very structure of the magic field, releasing the energy contained within it. It's... it's as if we learned not just to extract energy from a vacuum, but to force the vacuum itself to collapse into a single point!"

  He displayed complex, intricate diagrams from crystal plates on the screen again.

  "In creating this weapon, they use the most complex 'spells' or 'formulas'. Essentially, these are multidimensional mathematical equations, 'program codes' for controlling this energy. They, like an operating system, are 'imprinted' into the aether core and control the chain reaction. And this entire structure," he pointed to the carrier diagram, which looked like a hybrid of a V-2 rocket and a Gothic spire, "is propelled by a magical propulsion system that lifts the weapon into the stratosphere, from where it falls on the target along a correctable ballistic trajectory."

  "And the range? What is the operational radius of this... miracle?" asked Anatoly hollowly, almost in a whisper.

  "That is the scariest part," answered Alexey quietly. "According to our calculations, the effective range of these 'magic bombs'... exceeds 50,000 kilometers. That is enough to strike any point on this planet from any other. That is almost three times more than our 'Sarmat'!"

  "This is no joke, Tolya," concluded Alexey. "This is a weapon of absolute, global dominance. And Ravernal, who disappeared thousands of years ago, had it."

  "Data from Artur Igorevich's group is already being transferred to your complex," finished Alexey, and his voice sounded tired, almost devastated. "One thing is clear now: the Ravernal Empire was technologically advanced to a level we cannot even imagine. And it did not shy away from using this weapon. According to the legends of the Dragonfolk from Eimor, exactly such a bomb wiped their ancient capital off the face of the earth."

  Anatoly Borisovich was silent, digesting what he had heard. He was a scientist, a man of numbers and facts. And the facts were terrifying.

  "Fifty thousand kilometers..." he finally said quietly, almost with reverence. "It is simply incredible. A global first-strike weapon." He fell silent for a long time, then slowly, heavily sighed. It was the sigh of a man upon whom the entire burden of responsibility for the future of his world had just fallen.

  "But if it is a fact, then we must accept it as a fact. We will create a joint working group: your theorists, our weapon smiths from Arzamas-16, specialists from Rosatom. We will study it."

  He leaned back in his chair, staring into nowhere, and a crooked smile devoid of any mirth appeared on his lips.

  "Curiouser and curiouser... We just arrived, and already a local analogue of Doomsday looms on our horizon. wonderful. Just wonderful."

  "And that is not all," added Alexey, and a new, even gloomier note sounded in his voice. "In the third complex, where our bioengineering group works, they finished a complete genetic analysis of captured 'demon' specimens from the Kingdom of Topa. The results are... frightening. These are not spontaneous mutations. This is the product of high-precision, purposeful genetic engineering. Local legends that said these creatures were artificially created by Ravernal as a biological weapon for total genocide turned out to be the pure, one hundred percent truth."

  He displayed a complex, rotating DNA spiral dotted with dozens of red markers on the main screen.

  "Their genetic code is a chimeric nightmare. It contains artificially introduced sequences, 'synthetic genes', which are not found in any ecosystem known to us on this planet. We discovered that they learned not just to 'turn off' or 'edit' genes, like us with our primitive CRISPR/Cas9. They learned to write them from scratch, like program code. They took the genome of one species, cut out the necessary sections, and inserted them into another, creating something completely new. They manipulated genes responsible for cellular metabolism, pain threshold, regeneration. This explains their incredible strength and vitality."

  "This means that the Ravernal Empire possesses the deepest, almost divine knowledge in the field of molecular biology. Moreover," Alexey sighed heavily, "our researchers, after analyzing residual magical fields in tissues, put forward a hypothesis... They believe that Ravernal learned to use magical energy itself as a hyper-precise tool for directed genome editing at the subatomic level! This... this is quantum magical genetic engineering, Anatoly! They are capable of creating creatures with specified characteristics like we print parts on a 3D printer! This is a monstrous, unnatural symbiosis of science and magic that places them at a technological height fundamentally unattainable for us!"

  "First wake-up call—'Core Magic', a weapon of mass destruction based on magic we do not understand. Now—this: the creation of ideal biological killing machines. They mastered both magic and biology to such an extent that they became almost gods," Anatoly summarized hollowly.

  "I understand," he nodded to his counterpart. His face was like a stone mask. "Did you report this to the very top? What did they say in the Kremlin?"

  "Yes. The answer was predictable: 'continue work as standard, do not create empty panic'," Alexey smirked crookedly, without a shadow of mirth.

  With that, their official conversation ran dry. For several long, excruciating minutes they were silent, each immersed in his own thoughts. And then, as if trying to break free from the icy embrace of apocalyptic forecasts to the warm, sinful earth, Anatoly asked unexpectedly, almost inappropriately:

  "Listen, Lyosha, how is your son doing, did he get into Bauman after all?"

  The dialogue shifted to ordinary, everyday chatter. About families, about grades, about friends, about a stupid football match. Usually, there was never time for this, but today, after everything heard, both of them, two titans of Russian science upon whose shoulders lay the responsibility for the survival of an entire nation, simply needed to talk about something simple. About something normal. About something human. To forget for a moment on the edge of what bottomless, dark, and terrible abyss they all stood.