Chapter 139: Turbulence (1)
“…It can’t go on like this.”
The Mental Parasite muttered with a grim determination.
“Isn’t there any way to call in support from Argyrion?”
“Impossible. The Ten Towers’ attention is fully focused on this city. If we try using spatial magic, there’s a chance they’ll trace it back to us.”
Even if the spatial coordinates of Argyrion’s base were exposed to the Ten Towers, an immediate raid wasn’t likely. Argyrion’s headquarters lay deep within the extradimensional realm, where not only coordinates but a multitude of defense spells would need to be breached to reach it safely.
But the Ten Towers were formidable. If their coordinates were discovered, it would take less than a month for them to launch a massive campaign against Argyrion.
Nastion was starting to consider withdrawing, abandoning both Algoth City and the Mental Parasite. There seemed to be no way forward.
A joint pursuit by the Divine Cult and Blasphemia…
Who could have foreseen such an alliance?
Nastion hadn’t just stood idly by. Through persistent surveillance and espionage, he’d identified that among the Panoptes agents gathered in the city, only Blasphemia’s members were under Orthes’s control.
He’d briefly hoped to disrupt the strange cooperation between the Divine Cult and Blasphemia by leveraging the old conflict between Argos and Blasphemia.
But what had caused Amimone Tower to fall vacant in the first place?
It was because Argos, an investigator from the Amimone Tower, was accused of colluding with Argyrion.
Now, Argos held only the authority to oversee the Tower Lord Selection, with no jurisdiction over any subversive elements in the city.
Panoptes had deployed every surveillance device in the city to track Nastion and the Mental Parasite. Even if they evaded the mechanical monitoring, the Divine Cult’s incantations remained.
Nastion felt as if the entire city were hostile toward him.
In reality, Algoth City’s infrastructure was interconnected with Amimone Tower, whose mana core was under the temporary management of the Selection Committee. And since the Committee was primarily comprised of Blasphemia members under Orthes’s influence, the city being hostile to them was more fact than metaphor.
As Nastion retraced the steps that had brought him to this point, the Mental Parasite repeated the phrase, *“It can’t go on like this.”*
“There’s no way to turn this situation around using conventional methods.”
The Parasite calmly acknowledged their disadvantage. Even in the one area where it thought it could overwhelm Orthes—through its sheer number of host bodies—it had been outdone.
As long as Orthes could wield Blasphemia and, by extension, Panoptes, the manpower he could summon was virtually limitless.
Outmatched in both numbers and quality, the fight was inevitably unwinnable.
So, they returned to the starting point: how to complete the transformation.
“At this rate, won’t the trap Argyrion set up also be useless?”
“Yes. Our collaborators are being captured before the final battle has even begun.”
It was already happening. Argyrion had planted a list of agents as a trap, baited to ensnare Hydra Corporation, but Orthes had somehow identified the actual agents and captured only them.
While not every agent was on the list, Orthes managed to detain the others by identifying those in contact with those named.
At this stage, half of Halto’s plan was already foiled.
Someone had once said that the adversary was the Philosopher’s Stone that crafted traps rather than gold. Nastion couldn’t help recalling Argyrion’s leaders’ furious laments over their past failures.
Perhaps it was time to admit defeat and retreat. Leaving Algoth City to complete the false god transformation back at Argyrion’s base and setting the next trap from there might be the wiser choice.
But a maxim about their adversary resurfaced in his mind: *“If you let him slip away even once, you’ll never see him again until he chooses to reveal himself.”*
A dangerous being like Orthes couldn’t be allowed to roam free. At the very least, they needed to wound him deeply enough to halt his activities temporarily.
As Nastion brooded over their predicament, the Parasite proposed an unexpected plan.
“Just once. I only need to approach him undetected by Blasphemia one time. Can it be done?”
“…”
A seemingly absurd, yet perhaps only possible solution.
***
“They’ve disappeared, sir.”
That was Niobe’s response. I had given her sketches of every host body the Mental Parasite might use, but it seemed none of them were showing up in Algoth City anymore.
“Strangely enough, we’re unable to track them.”
That was Demus’s report. I rubbed my temples as I replied.
“Not even with incantations?”
“The gods have no limits, but humans do. What would you need to expand an incantation’s range and precision?”
“A lot of divine power?”
“Exactly. For the incantation to miss its target, it would either have to be very far away, even after the hunting priest has exhausted his divine power, or the target is hiding within the influence of some extraordinarily powerful force.”
“And how powerful would that need to be?”
“Well… if it’s thrown into the extradimensional realm, or if it’s hiding under the shadow of the Ten Commandments in the Ten Towers, perhaps?”
“Heh…”
Demus listed several other situations that could hinder tracking. If the Parasite’s own mana levels dropped significantly, it would naturally become harder to find. There was also the half-joking suggestion that if it was already dead, the incantation would end since the hunt would be considered completed.
But it couldn’t be dead. My life never unfolded so easily.
My neck started feeling tense for no reason.
I had wanted to settle this before they could escape. Though Amimone Tower would soon fall to Kynemon, leaving things as they were made it hard not to worry about future complications.
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing we can do. I’ll leave the search in your hands until the Tower Lord Selection ends.”
As Demus nodded thoughtfully, he suddenly asked.
“What do you plan to do once you’ve secured Amimone Tower?”
“Hm? This is a gift for Ms. Kynemon, after all. It’s not something I’d get involved with.”
Demus’s expression clouded with doubt. Had I not explained?
Then again, this was a personal matter; it wouldn’t be proper for me to disclose too much.
“Who devised the plan to bring down Amimone Tower?”
“I did.”
“And who took direct action to bring it down?”
“Since I suggested it, I did.”
“…Then why would someone else receive it?”
“As I mentioned, it’s a gift,” I said, smiling.
***
After the Divine Cult’s arrival, Carisia kept her interactions with them to a minimum, following Orthes’s advice to maintain some distance.
Thus, the Divine Cult’s impression of Carisia was fairly superficial. A talented mage, Hydra’s nominal CEO, and a guardian figure to Kine.
The members of the Divine Cult, including Demus, assumed there must be a connection between Orthes’s lack of direct control over Hydra and his plan for Kynemon to receive Amimone Tower.
They speculated that since Orthes was a Blasphemia agent, he had placed Kynemon and Carisia as figureheads to avoid drawing undue attention to himself. In other words, the two were merely commanders under the authority of Orthes.
Demus disagreed with this view, but he couldn’t overturn the consensus held by the priests of Glaucus, considered the wisest within the Divine Cult.
To Demus, Orthes didn’t seem to be someone motivated by ambition. If anything, he resembled an office worker who dealt with the tasks that came his way daily. He kept such observations to himself, though, as they invariably drew derision from both the Saint faction and the Pope faction.
His current reason for slipping away from the Cult’s nightly meetings was similar. The priests spent hours debating whether Orthes was plotting something, and Demus had nothing to contribute on the matter.
While wandering the yard of a building rented out entirely by Hydra, he saw two figures approaching from afar.
One of them was familiar—a certain narrow-eyed man with an oddly blurred presence.
The other wasn’t familiar, but easily recognizable: long, silver-white hair cascading down his back, a rare sight indeed.
It seemed Orthes had come to meet Carisia, who’d once again been summoned by Blasphemia. Despite Orthes’s intervention making the questioning somewhat perfunctory, Carisia’s expression revealed a certain fatigue.
As Demus turned to look away, Carisia’s golden eyes met his.
In that moment, Demus felt as if an ice-cold spike was driving through his heart, a chilling sensation rising from within. His chest was racked with a fierce, tearing pain.
It was the kind of resignation one feels in the face of unavoidable fate, a surrender felt only at the brink of death.
The divine power within him screamed, writhing in rejection of an utterly incompatible intruder.
He’d felt this sensation only once before.
In the twilight of his younger days, when he still believed he could change the world on his own…
…It was like the despair he had felt when standing before the Ten Commandments.
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