Reborn as a Hated Noble Family, We Start an Industrial Revolution-Chapter 139: THE SIEVE OF THE EAGLES

​The sun had only just begun to climb over the jagged horizon of Iron Hearth, yet the South Paddock already resembled a disturbed hornets’ nest. Hundreds of young men—ranging from low-ranking knights and infantry survivors of the Northveil massacre to desperate civilians seeking the fabled two gold coins—stood shoulder to shoulder behind the heavily guarded perimeter lines.

​Behind the iron fences, reinforced by soldiers armed with the latest Sudrath Spears, the air didn’t ring with the sound of machinery. Instead, it was filled with an unnatural, haunting howl of rushing wind.

​"Are you certain they won’t die before they even get a chance to board the ’Dragonfly,’ Arvid?" Rianor stood on the high observation platform, his arms crossed over his chest as he surveyed the field below.

​Arvid, whose hair had become an unruly nest due to weeks of sleep deprivation, wiped a smudge of mana-dust from his forehead with the back of a grime-streaked hand. "This is the Aero-Balance Array, Rianor. I’ve heavily modified a low-level gravity circle and fused it with a vertical wind-circulation spell. If these recruits cannot intuitively balance their center of mass while suspended in a chaotic, fluctuating slipstream, they will be nothing more than dead weight in a cockpit. We aren’t looking for strength here; we are looking for a sense of equilibrium that cannot be taught."

​Down on the field, the sight was harrowing to the uninitiated. Ten candidates at a time were launched into the air by violent gusts of wind erupting from hidden vents in the ground. Their bodies were tossed, tilted, and spun like dried leaves caught in a winter gale.

​"Ugh... Help..." One candidate plummeted back to the earth after barely five seconds of struggle. His face was a ghostly shade of green before he succumbed to his nausea, retching onto the manicured grass.

​"Medic! Get him to the triage tent!" a supervising sergeant barked.

​Two nurses in crisp white uniforms moved with practiced efficiency, hoisting the unfortunate youth onto a stretcher. Dr. Elena was notably absent from the field; she remained entrenched within the City Hospital, buried under medical reports regarding Riven’s recovery and the rehabilitation of mages suffering from the dreaded ’Mana Burn.’ The responsibility of the initial physical screening had been delegated to senior medical staff and veteran instructors.

​At the edges of the paddock, the civilian crowd was becoming restless. Not all had come to enlist; some were there to gawk, while others were there to sow dissent.

​"This is madness! Look at them! They are torturing our sons with that cursed sorcery!" an elderly man in tattered clothes shouted, shaking his fist at the guards. "The roar of the engines at night was enough to keep us awake, and now they want us to fall from the sky?"

​"Hah! Just admit you’re bitter because your son failed the paperwork screening, old man!" a younger man beside him retorted. "Those two gold coins could feed a family for three years. Let the Sudraths work. Without them, the Iron Empire would have burned your hovel to the ground by now."

​The tension threatened to boil over as a group carrying the symbols of Father Geryon’s religious faction began to push against the barrier. "Stop this desecration! Man was not born with wings!"

​However, before a riot could ignite, several seemingly ordinary figures in the crowd moved with lethal grace. One of the most vocal agitators suddenly felt a hard, cold object pressed firmly against his ribs.

​"Shh... Stay calm, sir. Or would you prefer to spend the night in the black cells for sabotaging military stability?" a young woman whispered, her gaze as sharp and predatory as a hawk’s. She was a Nightshade Sentinel in deep cover.

​Ember, observing from the shadows of a warehouse roof, gave a subtle hand signal. Within seconds, the provocateurs were "guided" out of the crowd, removed so smoothly and quietly that the surrounding citizens barely noticed their disappearance.

​Back at the center of the testing ground, Sergeant Kaelen stood with a metal clipboard in his hand. His mathematical face remained a mask of dissatisfaction. "Failed. Failed. Too slow. Next!"

​Then, a young man stepped forward. Thamrin.

​He wore nothing but a worn leather vest and faded trousers, yet the way he held himself set him apart from the frantic recruits before him. When his turn came to enter the Aero-Balance Array, the vertical wind currents hit him with the force of a battering ram.

​Unlike the others who flailed and fought the air, Thamrin did something unexpected. He spread his arms slightly, relaxed his posture, and bent his knees. He didn’t fight the current; he rode it.

​"Look at that," Captain Thorne murmured, standing beside Kaelen. "He isn’t using muscle. He’s using instinct. He’s feeling the vectors."

​Kaelen narrowed his eyes. He reached for the control lever on the console before him, abruptly doubling the turbulence. "Let’s see how he handles a sudden shift in the wind vector."

​Thamrin’s body was nearly thrown sideways by the sudden blast, but with a movement that was almost dance-like, he performed a controlled roll in mid-air and regained his stability in seconds. His eyes remained locked on a fixed point, showing no signs of the debilitating nausea that had claimed dozens before him.

​After three full minutes—the longest record of the day—Kaelen finally deactivated the airflow. Thamrin landed on both feet, slightly out of breath but standing tall and steady.

​Thamrin walked toward Kaelen’s desk and snapped a perfect military salute. "Test complete, Sergeant."

​Kaelen remained silent for a moment, looking at Thamrin’s perfect logic exam score from earlier and now this extraordinary physical performance. He lowered his clipboard and looked the boy in the eye. "You... you have an annoying amount of talent, kid. But I have to admit, you’re the first candidate today who hasn’t made me want to throw this clipboard into the trash."

​"Thank you, Sergeant," Thamrin replied, his tone level and respectful.

​"Don’t celebrate just yet," Rianor’s voice cut in. He had descended from the observation deck and was approaching the group. "Balancing your body in a wind tunnel is one thing. Operating twenty crystal levers while being peppered by enemy fire is another. You’ve passed the preliminary screening, Thamrin. Don’t make me regret spending gold on your salary."

​Thamrin bowed deeply. "I will not fail House Sudrath, Master Rianor."

​Rianor gave a curt nod before glancing at Kaelen. "Put his name at the top of the priority list. And Kaelen, keep a very close watch on candidates number 42 and 87. Ember reports they’ve shown movements far too professional for mere farmers. I want to know if they are spies stupid enough to walk into the wolf’s den voluntarily."

​Kaelen nodded grimly. "Understood, Master."

​By evening, Rianor’s focus had shifted from the training field to the inner sanctum of Alpha Workshop. Here, the atmosphere was more organized but far more intense. The scream of lathes and the brilliant hiss of mana-welding filled the cavernous space.

​Hektor Torricelli stood before a helicopter that looked significantly different from the prototype tested previously. It was no longer bare, unpainted metal; the chassis was now coated in a matte, dark-grey finish with a silver howling wolf emblazoned on the tail boom.

​"Here she is, Rianor," Hektor said, a rare note of pride in his voice. "The first mass-production model. Based on your feedback, I’ve reinforced the tail structure and simplified the access panels to the mana-steam engine. Maintenance in the field will be significantly faster now."

​Rianor ran his hand along the smooth, cold hull. "And the cooling system?"

​"Flawless," Arvid said, emerging from beneath the chassis. "The Ice-Circulation Spells we integrated into the duralumin piping work like a charm. I’ve run the engine at 110% output for two hours straight. There’s no sign of valve expansion or thermal warping."

​Rianor looked at the row of five other helicopter frames being assembled by technicians behind them. "Good. Starting tomorrow, we stop calling it a prototype. This is the Sudrath Sky-Hunter. The weapon that will end the Iron Empire’s land dominance."

​"A bold name," Hektor commented. "But we need more than five, Rianor. Rudigor has thousands of troops entrenched in Northveil."

​"That’s why I’ve ordered Roney at the Central Foundry to temporarily halt the production of Wolf-Tusk tank chassis and divert 40% of their resources to Sky-Hunter components," Rianor stated firmly. "We don’t need a thousand helicopters to win. We only need fifty piloted by the right people, and we can rain death upon them from a height they cannot even fathom."

​Rianor stepped into the newly completed cockpit of the Sky-Hunter. He settled into the pilot’s seat, testing the Cyclic lever, which now felt perfectly ergonomic in his grip. Through the workshop window, he watched the sun dip below the horizon, painting the Northreach sky in shades of blood and fire.

​"Evolution is never a peaceful process, Hektor," Rianor whispered to himself. "And for the Iron Empire... the storm has only just begun."

​In a dark corner of the workshop, a newly recruited technical assistant was surreptitiously scribbling notes into a small ledger, his hands trembling. He had no idea that from the shadows of the rafters, a Nightshade Sentinel was watching every stroke of his pen. The trap had been set, and in Northreach, no secret could survive for long under the watchful gaze of House Sudrath.

​The production lines continued to roar, creating a rhythm that would soon redraw the power map of the Aethel-Terra continent. The era of aerial cavalry had finally been born in this frozen land.