The OP Lich is a Returnee: Book 21 - Military (Lich Returnee) by Grosse Stuart

Author:Grosse, Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2026-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 207 – Security

The exercise was a true success, in every metric that you could measure. My troops did have a bit more of a magical signature, even suppressed, than the mana-engines on the transports, but the planes were still only five kilometers out when they were detected as more than background noise with the scanners. Five minutes from detection to a full attack, two and a half if you wanted to get into melee as fast as possible. Even if a target had been on full alert, with defense crews already at battle stations and weapons primed, that was precious little time to react to an attack, before it was too late for their defenses to matter.

Pantha and Kiya’s eyes gleamed as we went over the data, already picturing the different possibilities. This drop was more than just a test of what my own troops could do, of course. It also proved that paratroopers could be effective, even with magic in the mix. Even if they needed to use magic to augment or replace their parachutes.

Most people did not consider just how risky it was for mortal beings to throw themselves out of a perfectly good plane with nothing but cloth on a string to keep them from Death’s sweet embrace. Even at the best of times, equipment failure or human error were possible hazards, but when wind and weather started acting up, the dangers naturally rose. The use of magic to help augment or replace a parachute during a drop could allow mortal paratroopers to alleviate much of the danger. Just having a weak shield of Wind mana to keep the air from blowing them around would increase safety dramatically, but thaumaturges who were trained as paratroopers were understandably rare, before the Unsealing, and there had not been any major conflicts since the Awakening to really test how effective they would be.

Of course, it also brought security concerns to light. If my knights could get to five kilometers out before being detected, then that meant mortals who knew how to suppress their mana output would be able to get to the ground practically unseen. That was great, if you were the attacking force. However, if you were on the receiving end, it was less than desirable, to say the least.

The problem was in finding a solution to the danger posed by magically-enhanced commandos infiltrating. Special forces that were literally invisible to the naked eye were something of a nightmare scenario for mortal forces. It would take far more to hide them from my troops, of course, since they could see the presence of living creatures even without eyes. And I had very deliberately not given anyone the spells to hide from undead eyes, so anyone else would need to develop those for themselves. But mortal defenders would not be so lucky.

The issue was that there was only so much you could do to lock down an area without the security becoming more problematic than the potential threat. It was possible to create wards that would block out any intruder, of course.

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