CHAPTER 28: DIALECTICS OF REVOLUTION

Caedrion descended from his spire and stepped into Baelius’ workshop.The air smelled of oiled steel, warm brass, and the faint metallic tang of spent Ignarion batteries cooling on a rack.

Somewhere in the corner, a cooling rune whined faintly, and the rhythmic click-hiss of a battery cradle locking into place marked Baelius’ latest cycle.

In the days leading up to the wedding, the man had clearly been busy. The new magitech rifle was no longer a fragile experiment.

It was a refined, battle-ready weapon. And so too was the process to manufacture it, along with its ammunition.

On the main worktable, two dozen rifles lay in neat rows, each accompanied by their own bundles of enchanted sabots and flechettes.

Nearby, steel spam cans were stacked chest-high, each stenciled with runes marking their contents: thousands of ready rounds.

"Good morning, young master... It would appear you have slept in longer than usual,"

Baelius remarked, a knowing smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth.

"I hope your wedding night was to your liking."

Caedrion ignored the barb and reached for the nearest rifle.

He brought it to his shoulder, weighing it, then lowered it and began sweeping it with his magic.

scanning the metal on a microscopic level for fractures and flaws that even a gunsmith’s most advanced non-magical tests could miss.

Nothing. Not a single imperfection.

That was the point. The machines he’d designed, and that Baelius now operated, didn’t forge parts in the old way. They didn’t hammer, cut, or file. They shaped.

Each unit used batteries of Caedrion’s own design, infused with Ignarion flame and bound to runic Architect patterns he had personally inscribed.

The moment raw steel, brass, or hardwood entered the hopper, the magic-field captured it, altered it at the molecular level, and restructured it into a finished component: receiver, breech block, barrel, trigger, spring, each perfectly true to the original pattern stored in the runes.

A semi-skilled worker could operate them. Pull a lever, replace a battery, and the part emerged complete, as if transmuted in an instant from raw ore to finished precision.

No forge. No tooling. No waste.

He tilted the rifle, peering down the bore. Smooth. Perfectly smooth. No grooves, no spiral.

Any conventional soldier would have called it useless; a smoothbore could never keep a shot straight at sufficient range.

But this was not a conventional weapon.

The flechettes it fired never needed rifling.

The moment they cleared the muzzle, the Ignarion flame’s discharge, and the embedded stabilization glyphs spun them at the exact centrifugal rate required.

Locking them into their trajectory before the human eye could register the shot.

The sabot peeled away in perfect symmetry, and the flechette’s path remained as true at five hundred paces as it did at fifty.

No wear from engraving, no fouling, no loss of accuracy over time. The magic did the work that physics alone could not.

Caedrion lowered the weapon, satisfied.

This was more than a rifle.

It was the proof of concept for something greater, an industry where the Architect’s spirit could shape the tools of war with the same precision it once shaped the bones of the world.

He smirked and set the weapon on the table, giving Baelius an approving nod.

"I believe we have just created the end of an era, you and I. These weapons have made the Magi completely obsolete as a class of aristocratic warriors. The age of spellswords ruling with terror and dread over the masses has come to an end. Now... every man, woman, and child capable of bearing arms owns the battlefield."

Baelius scoffed in disbelief. "Every man, woman, and child? A threat to the Magi? You must be half asleep still."

Caedrion clicked his tongue, reached for another rifle, and snapped open its breech in one fluid motion. In the same instant, he chambered a shell and leveled the weapon squarely at Baelius.

The Crucible’s fire flared in the man’s eyes as his hands rose instinctively to cast.

And then, one word."Boom."

No explosion came. Only the soft metallic tink of a shell ejecting. Caedrion caught it mid-air, spun it in his fingers, and tossed the flechette to Baelius.

"For as long as our people can remember, the Magi have had a monopoly on violence. Violence is force, and all power is derived from that force."

His words lingered in the workshop, only to continue with even greater intensity.

"Now, every man will have the ability to assert themselves as the Magi’s equal. That is what we have done here. And that is why House Ignarion is going to find themselves in for a very rude awakening."

Baelius’ breath stayed caught in his chest, cold sweat beading at his brow. He stared at the weapons and the forge that birthed them as if he were looking at something truly monstrous.

"It would take thousands armed with these weapons to counter a force of Magi," he said at last. "The scale alone—"

He stopped. The realization set in. This was not about a few rifles. This was about the machine.

Caedrion smiled, rolling a loose shell between his fingers.

"Yes. And how many years does it take to train a proper Ignarion spellsword? A dozen? Perhaps two? Give me two weeks, and my men will be killing their former masters at three hundred yards. Give me two months, and my soldiers will march in formation across the Ashlands as legion. Give me two years..."

His grin widened.

"...and the world will tremble at the wrath of the common man. What House Ignarion has started is not a war that will burn Dawnhaven to ash, but a revolution that will unmake the very fabric of our society. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis."

He set the shell on the table with a soft click.

"That," he said, "is what we are."