29 de Azrael de 1790 —The Gaotu Empire has thrown open the hangar doors of history, revealing a synchronized twin wave of mechanical Numina and biological Kaiju that promises to redefine warfare across Kenoma and tilt the hot war against Abbā də Rabbūṯā decisively in Edo’s favour. In an age where power is measured in tonnage, thaumaturgy, and throughput, the Gaotu Empire has long sat near the pinnacle of Kenoma’s economic-military hierarchy. It has now moved to ensure that the gap between Edo and its rivals is no longer merely stylistic, but strategic and absolute.
From the neon-washed avenues of its capital to the orbital drydocks above Pronoia, Gaotu’s elite have pressed for a qualitative leap in warfighting capability. The result, announced in a tightly choreographed ceremony in Edo’s Imperial Arsenal District, is a paired unveiling: four new Numina from the Kidō Zaibatsu and four new Kaiju from Amanozako Labs. For military historians and defense analysts, the message could not be clearer. In a Kenoma defined by cold raids, proxy conflicts, and the simmering hot war with the Steelpunk Confederation of Abbā də Rabbūṯā, the Empire is done with incremental upgrades. It is now fielding weapons that fuse Post-Cyberpunk precision with mythic terror.
The Gaotu Empire has always been more than its tonnage tables. It is an aesthetic superpower, draping its arsenals in the language of oriental mythology. The new weapons follow that tradition with almost devotional zeal.
The four Numina—Bakotsu Highspeed Transport, Itsumade Aerial Bombardment Unit, Yatagarasu Spy Vehicle, and Kaibyō Battle Suit—wear clearly mythic names. Each evokes a creature from folklore: phantom birds, three-legged crows, bewitching cats. The message to allies and enemies alike is that Gaotian steel does not simply fight; it narrates.
Facing them across the doctrinal divide stand four new Kaiju: Kangiten Giantified Bacterium, Orochi Acid-Breathing Ophidian, Dōji Man-Eating Apes, and Shikome Pheromonal Plague. These are not merely assets; they are nightmares made operational, marrying Bio Punk xenogenesis with religiously-tinted reverence for plague, serpent, demon, and hag.
In Edo’s military academies, cadets are already being taught to read these names as sigils—mnemonic keys that encode each platform’s battlefield role into the Empire’s mythic subconscious. War, in Gaotu, is never just logistics. It is liturgy.
Kidō Zaibatsu’s Numina: Precision in Motion
The Kidō Zaibatsu’s contribution to this arsenal revolution centers on mechanical Mantics—infomorphs housed in steel, piloted by elite Numinologists. These are not dumb machines; they are catalyst-laced partners in combat, forming neural pacts with their pilots through magiware and noospheric interfaces.
The Bakotsu Highspeed Transport (BHT) is the quiet star of the logistics theater. Designed for rapid deployment of mechanized infantry and supplies, Bakotsu leverages high-efficiency power cores and terrain-adaptive locomotion. On the war Front, where Abbā də Rabbūṯā’s armored caravans grind slowly across rusted sand seas, Bakotsu units can outpace traditional columns, delivering troops and ammunition to contested choke points before enemy sensors can fully respond.
Complementing this is the Itsumade Aerial Bombardment Unit (IABU), a vast aerial Numina that blurs the line between bomber and flying fortress. Outfitted with sensor masts derived from Aiwass Magitek’s latest magiware suites, Itsumade can prosecute both area bombardment and precision strikes. Analysts note that a single Itsumade wing could depopulate an Abbā nomad-city’s defenses while simultaneously countering enemy interceptor swarms.
The Itsumade IABU: A vast aerial Numina that blurs the line between bomber and flying fortress, ushering in a new era of Gaotian dominance (Credit: Kenomitian)
The Yatagarasu Spy Vehicle (YSV) targets a different domain altogether: the Noosphere. Official briefings describe Yatagarasu as a spy vehicle; unofficially, officers call it a “hexed ghost in the wires.” Capable of existing as an infomorph infiltrating enemy datastreams, or as a stealth platform slipping through urban skylines, Yatagarasu specializes in meme-implantation and data sabotage. On the raid corridors, it has reportedly inverted entire battlefield perceptions by corrupting Steelpunk tactical overlays.
Finally, the Kaibyō Battle Suit (KBS) brings the myth of the lone hero into the era of powered armor. These wearable mecha fold Aviomancy-powered flight and exoskeletal enhancement into a single platform. For Numinologists on the war front, the KBS promises vertical envelopment assaults on cliffside bastions that were previously considered impregnable. Every pilot, suit designers boast, becomes a “walking sigil of Edo.”
Folding Aviomancy-powered flight into wearable mecha, turning every pilot into a ‘walking sigil of Edo’ for high-mobility assaults (Credit: Kenomitian)
Amanozako Labs’ Monsters: Terror as Doctrine
If the Numina represent Gaotu’s surgical hand, the Kaiju are its crushing fist. Amanozako Labs, operating from heavily restricted biocryptic vaults, has pushed xenogenesis toward the outer limits of ethical imagination.
The Kangiten Giantified Bacterium is perhaps the most conceptually radical. Rather than a microscopic pathogen, this Kaiju is a colossal, visible organism whose very bulk is a weapon. Designed to engulf fortifications and armored spearheads, Kangiten transforms the battlefield into a living, shifting hazard zone. On the Pronoia Extraplanetary Ridge, military planners envision using Kangiten to physically consume enemy mining colonies, turning infrastructure into biomass.
The Orochi Acid-Breathing Ophidian, channeling traditional myth to dissolve the steel-rich fortresses of the Abbā də Rabbūṯā along the critical Iron Sutra Line (Credit: Kenomitian)
The Orochi Acid-Breathing Ophidian, by contrast, channels more traditional kaiju imagery. A serpentine behemoth with chemically supercharged breath, Orochi is tailored to counter the steel-rich fortresses of Abbā də Rabbūṯā. Its acid jets can dissolve Steelpunk hulls and trenchworks, turning linear defenses into bubbling slag. On the Iron Sutra Line—a crucial defensive belt for Abbā forces—simulations show Orochi opening breach corridors in minutes.
The Kangiten Giantified Bacterium: Conceptual warfare made real, a colossal organism designed to physically consume enemy mining colonies and turn infrastructure into biomass (Credit: Kenomitian)
The Dōji Man-Eating Apes bring the terror down to close range. Engineered for raw strength and pack coordination, these shock troops thrive in urban and jungle environments. Their deployment doctrine emphasizes psychological overkill: surprise drops from low-flying transports, followed by brutal, hand-to-hand engagements. Reports from black-site trials suggest entire enemy platoons routed by the mere sound of Dōji vocalizations.
The Dōji Man-Eating Apes: Engineered for raw strength and psychological overkill, these shock troops thrive in urban warfare, routing platoons with the mere sound of their vocalizations (Credit: Kenomitian)
The Shikome Pheromonal Plague is the most insidious of the quartet. Rather than killing outright, Shikome manipulates. Its engineered pheromonal fields can induce despair, rage, misplaced loyalty, or mass panic. On the war front, planners are already drafting scenarios in which Shikome clouds precede amphibious landings, softening resistance as defenders turn on one another or collapse into indecision.
War Fronts Rewritten
The timing of the unveiling is no accident. The hot war with Abbā də Rabbūṯā has entered a grinding phase, with the Steelpunk Confederation relying on armored caravans, rail-cannon batteries, and vast nomadic city-fortresses to hold critical corridors. Bakotsu transports promise to outflank slow Abbā armor columns, while Dōji Apes clear captured chokepoints in brutal close quarters. Itsumade aerial units can hang above cloud cover, raining down both kinetic and magical munitions on enemy rail lines, while Yatagarasu hacks Steelpunk logistics algorithms.
Kaibyō Battle Suits offer high-mobility assaults on coastal gun emplacements, supported by Shikome Pheromonal Plague deployments that sow confusion among harbor defense crews. Orochi, too large for confined urban theaters, finds its best use here against coastal citadels and maritime battlegroups. The Kangiten Giantified Bacterium becomes a strategic siege tool. Rather than protracted artillery duels at asteroid bastions, Gaotu planners envision simply dropping Kangiten onto enemy holds and letting it “eat” the problem away.
Yet every escalation invites an answer. Abbā də Rabbūṯā’s engineers and shamans will not remain idle. Steelpunk counter-monstrosities, anti-Numina hunter cadres, and noospheric counter-memes are already rumored in the border markets. The arms race that Gaotu seeks to dominate may soon enter yet another, even more volatile phase. For now, however, the skies above Edo glow with launch flares. History will mark that Gaotu did not merely upgrade its arsenal. It stepped fully into the myth it has long told about itself—and invited all of Kenoma to witness what happens when giant robots and giant monsters cease to be metaphors and become doctrine.
