I Reincarnated as a Prince Who Revolutionized the Kingdom-Chapter 167: A Shape in the Dark

The hearth had died down hours ago, casting the workshop in an amber gloom, but his pen moved with steady, methodical strokes across fresh parchment.

Amalia stood by the door, arms crossed. She didn't speak at first. Just watched the man she had married draw the shape of a bird sharper than anything they had built before.

"It's not a hawk anymore, is it?" she finally asked.

Bruno didn't look up. "No. It's something else now."

He turned the page slightly, revealing a sleek frame with forward-swept wings and rear-mounted dual turbines. A glass dome stretched over a pressure-sealed cockpit. On its underside, Bruno had sketched a pod-like housing.

Amalia leaned in. "That looks like a… drone bay?"

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"A modular deployment capsule," Bruno confirmed. "Autonomous or remote-linked. Once released, it can deploy smaller units—decoys, or drones, or even supply drops. If the enemy wants to overwhelm us with fear, we respond with versatility."

She studied the curves of the new design. "What are you calling it?"

Bruno hesitated.

Then, softly: "Ravenspear."

Port-Luthair — Air Corps Testing Range, Two Days Later

The testing site had expanded. New hangars were being constructed. More barracks. A rotating schedule of pilot cadets moved through simulation chambers and flight drills. And now, at the northern edge of the base, a secluded airstrip had been paved for one purpose only: to birth a new weapon.

Hartwell stood beside the scaffold where the first Ravenspear prototype lay in early assembly. Steel skeleton only. The rest would follow.

Beside him, Rena adjusted her goggles and gestured toward the undercarriage.

"I've never seen this configuration before," she said. "Is it stable?"

"It's not meant to be stable," Hartwell muttered. "It's meant to adapt."

Bruno arrived moments later, his boots crunching gravel.

"Status?"

"Fuselage's ahead of schedule," Rena replied. "But the new control system you wanted… that's going to take custom calibration. We're moving beyond conventional mechanics, Sire."

"Then move with it," Bruno said. "If the skies are going to change, we lead the current."

He approached the nose cone and ran a hand along its unfinished frame.

"This isn't just a countermeasure," he said. "It's a message."

"To who?" Hartwell asked.

Bruno turned. "To the future."

Berlinhof — Intelligence Briefing Chamber

Eliska Weiss reviewed the intercepted construction orders from Port-Luthair with a slow, measured frown.

She wasn't surprised Bruno had responded.

She was surprised it happened this fast.

"We're watching a new evolution," she said, voice low. "We start a whisper campaign, and he answers with engineering doctrine."

Chancellor Rosenthal paced behind her, hands clasped behind his back.

"What's its designation?"

"We don't know," Weiss admitted. "But the frame is larger than Hawkfire. Its engines are different. Cooling vents along the sides suggest it's built for high-altitude pressure stabilization."

Rosenthal stopped. "A stratospheric platform?"

Weiss nodded. "Possibly."

She closed the folder and stared at the window beyond.

"Bruno isn't racing us. He's building above us."

"Then escalate," Rosenthal said. "Let Orosk handle the claws. We'll poison the nest."

Athenaeum HQ — The Archive Room

The room was quiet.

Far below the palace, in a place known only to twelve people in the entire kingdom, Bruno sat with Leclerc and a woman named Clair Marchand, Director of Psychological Counter-Operations.

She wore all black. No uniform. Just the eyes of someone who had seen the edges of war before it became official.

"They've begun seeding uprisings in coastal colonies," Clair said. "Pamphlets. Forged proclamations. Even intercepted letters 'from Elysean defectors.' It's classic fifth-column work."

Bruno listened in silence.

"We can't suppress it all," Leclerc said. "Even truth gets drowned when the lies come faster."

"I know," Bruno said.

He opened a leather folder and revealed a stack of pre-written editorials, sealed with Athenaeum insignias.

"Then we don't suppress," he said. "We flood. Pre-emptively. We publish open letters, firsthand journals, manufacturing logs. Real. Honest. Boring, even. Let their hysteria crash against our sea of facts."

Clair nodded once.

"And the more honest we appear," she said, "the more their lies become unbelievable."

Bruno leaned back in his chair.

"Let their serpent rise. We'll bury it under daylight."

Velmir — Deep Hangar 7

It was monstrous.

The first Veles airframe had been assembled under freezing lights, painted matte black and given no markings. Its engines were fitted with flame-masking exhaust diffusers, designed to hide its presence even at full throttle.

It didn't need to maneuver.

It just needed to get above a city.

And fall.

"Load capacity?" the Tsar asked, standing beside Orlov in the reinforced viewing gallery.

"Nearly three times the Hawkfire," Orlov replied. "We've made sacrifices to speed, but none to destruction."

The Tsar stared through the glass as the Veles prototype was rolled out.

"Let them soar like falcons," he said softly. "We will strike like lightning."

Elysee — Private Quarters, Late Night

Bruno sat in the nursery, watching Louis sleep.

He didn't think of war here.

He thought of silence. Of peace. Of the impossible stillness before something inevitable.

Amelie entered quietly and took the seat beside him.

"He sleeps better than I expected," she said.

"He doesn't know what waits beyond the walls," Bruno replied.

"Then it's our job to make sure he never has to."

He nodded.

Then, softly: "They're building monsters, Amelie."

"And you're building a shield," she answered. "One made of more than armor and numbers. You're building vision."

Bruno glanced down at the baby again.

"Then I hope it's enough."

Port-Luthair — Five Days Later

At sunrise, the Ravenspear took flight.

The prototype's engines screamed in a higher pitch than any Hawkfire. Its wings shimmered with a strange alloy blend. As it climbed into the blue above, the shadow it cast wasn't wide—but long. Piercing.

Bruno watched from the control tower, hands clasped behind his back.

"She's different," Hartwell muttered beside him.

"She has to be," Bruno said.

"Speed?"

"Unconfirmed. But she's already climbed higher than any Hawkfire in its first run."

Rena's voice crackled in from the radio. "Altitude ceiling exceeded. All systems nominal. Flight holding stable at thirty-eight thousand feet."

Bruno smiled slightly.

"Good," he said. "Let's keep going."

Velmir — Secret Strategy Room

News of the Ravenspear's flight reached the Tsar through a courier line bypassing standard military channels.

He read the report twice.

Then stood, slowly.

"Begin contingency drills," he said.

Orlov blinked. "Sire?"

"If the hawk has seen the serpent," the Tsar said grimly, "then the serpent must strike before the sky closes."

Port-Luthair — Control Tower, Same Morning

The comms room erupted with soft applause as the Ravenspear broke its vertical climb and began banking eastward in a slow, calculated arc. The aircraft, graceful despite its aggressive form, rode the stratospheric winds like it belonged there.

Bruno didn't move. He continued to watch the dot on the tracking panel—small, steady, unwavering.

"She's holding," Rena said, glancing at the diagnostic feeds. "No flutter. No instability. Flight controls are reading like she's on rails."

Hartwell, usually gruff, let out a breath. "We've never built anything like this."

Bruno finally turned to them. "Then don't treat it like anything we've built before."

He stepped back from the console, arms behind his back.

"Begin scheduling a full systems test—maneuver trials, modular deployment, long-distance telemetry. I want her flown not as a prototype, but as the first of a doctrine."

"And what doctrine is that, Sire?" Rena asked, half-serious.

Bruno didn't answer at first.

Then, with a quiet conviction: "One that doesn't wait for the enemy to strike first."

Berlinhof — Germania's Naval Listening Station, Later That Day

The technician stared at the report coming through the long-range acoustic triangulators. Whispers of a new craft. Strange frequencies. Too high. Too smooth.

He turned to his superior, pale.

"Sir… it's not Hawkfire. And it's not a decoy."

The officer leaned in, reading the stream of telemetry.

A quiet shiver passed between them.

"They've built something new," he murmured. "And it flies above our doubt."

Outside, rain began to fall over Berlinhof.

And somewhere over the sea, the Ravenspear flew on—unseen, unheard, and unchallenged.

For now.