Chapter 90 – The Prelude to Chaos (6)
A low whisper, almost calm. But the implications it carried were catastrophic.
Talo seemed to be floating alone without any protection, but if one looked closely, they could see that a sophisticated fire web had been set up to shoot down anyone approaching him.
Most of the aerial cannons that were not bombarding the ground were positioned to protect Talo himself.
There was a reason why Argyrion’s angels were not throwing all their magic at him right away and were instead preparing another Gate to recharge their mana. They didn’t have enough mana to clear out the countless weapons deployed within the barrier.
Talo tried to shake Orthes off immediately, but Orthes’ movements were faster than the angel’s wing beats.
*Crack!*
Grabbing the handle of the blade embedded in the angel’s shoulder, Orthes twisted it to the right. The sound of bone and muscle tearing apart echoed. As the angel twisted in pain, a spell flew towards the spot where the angel had just been flapping its wings.
It wasn’t an automatic targeting shot from a pre-made weapon. It was a spell directly aimed and cast by the mage of the Ten Towers.
The light of the spell missed the angel and swept over the ground far below.
Argyrion didn’t have the time to look at the ground, but Orthes did. He observed the terrain affected by the spell.
‘…Flowers?’
The ground, imbued with the spell’s light, swelled grotesquely. The raised terrain, fused into a bizarre form, resembled a steel rose stamped out by a mold.
Orthes’ eyes interpreted the principle of the spell. It multiplied the metal elements like iron within the target, causing it to explode from within.
If an ordinary human had been hit, their entire body would have been skewered like it was pierced by iron spikes.
For a mage of the Silver Iron Magic Tower, who specialized in manipulating metals, this was a highly sophisticated technique. If desired, they could stop the spell’s operation, leaving only some of the limbs torn apart, making it useful for both killing and subjugating.
‘Can I counter that?’
Orthes twisted the blade handle embedded in the angel’s shoulder again. The angel screamed and twisted, almost falling. The fact that it didn’t let go of the Gate was a testament to its willpower.
‘The blade’s structure would get damaged if it’s hit by that…’
Even if he countered the spell with an overlay of formulas, it wouldn’t nullify the spell itself.
If he tried to defend with the blade, the metal elements of the blade would undergo abnormal growth, damaging its shape. Using a formula overlay would only add other elements to the growing structure without stopping the growth itself.
‘It would be better to interfere with the spell’s direction at close range before the formula is complete.’
His eyes sent a warning. He saw the trajectory of a spell aimed at him. It wasn’t a shot from one of Talo’s transmuted cannons. It was a killing spell prepared by Argyrion’s angels.
‘This is the end.’
Orthes’ eyes took in the battlefield.
While Talo watched him with interest, taking on a somewhat observer’s stance, preparations for the second Gate were complete.
The angels intended to sacrifice their own comrade to kill Orthes. The densely drawn trajectories in all directions were proof of their resolve.
Of course, Orthes had no intention of dying.
He pulled out the high-frequency blade and jumped down. As he fell, he swung the blade toward the Gate tightly held by the angel.
Argyrion sneered, realizing that Orthes’ attack hadn’t destroyed the Gate.
But Orthes hadn’t been aiming to destroy it from the start. He had embedded the formula of the basic light attribute magic, “Illumination,” into the formula of the Gate.
The silvery light pouring from the Gate began to grow brighter and brighter.
An overwhelming brightness that even the word “brilliant” couldn’t capture. When it’s too bright, you can’t see anything at all. Amid this blinding radiance, Orthes’ vision remained clear.
Orthes didn’t expect this distraction to last long. A mage of Talo’s caliber could have already modified his vision to infrared or something similar, and Argyrion, influenced by the extra-dimension, probably didn’t perceive their surroundings only in the visible spectrum.
But it would still take time for them to adjust their sensory mechanisms. Using the “Growth” drive once again, Orthes summoned vines and grabbed the angel’s wings.
The angel was dragged down to the ground, and Orthes used the recoil to propel himself upwards.
For the moment, he was at the highest altitude in the area.
He activated the drive for the third time. “Gale.” Riding the swirling wind, he dived towards Talo.
And Talo saw Orthes.
“He only uses the magic engraving drives… I can’t sense proper mana, so his magical proficiency must be lacking. That means his extraordinary physical abilities come from martial energy?”
To cultivate that level of martial energy, mere training methods passed down by mercenaries wouldn’t suffice. He must have undergone more proper martial energy training.
And Talo knew exactly where such “proper” training methods originated.
The most common type of martial energy in the current era was a combat application program injected into specialized close-combat droids to enhance their performance.
As a mage of the Silver Iron Magic Tower, Talo was well-versed in the design and history of combat droids. The origin of the martial energy methods injected into these droids came from the family secrets of knights sold off long ago.
“Remnants of outdated knights!”
Finally, the identity of this mysterious reinforcement, this third party, became clear.
The Ten Towers had only actively suppressed divine powers, but other supernatural abilities had also gradually declined under the dominance of magic.
Elementalists absorbed into the world of magic, shamans whose so-called “primitive magic” had been disassembled and stripped of their mystery, and the martial energy of knights, who barely managed to survive by selling off their family secrets, only to eventually be forgotten.
It seemed that one of these long-forgotten groups had seized the chaos as an opportunity to reemerge.
“Well. Hah. If they were from an ancient knight family, they might have been granted at least one artifact.”
Now it all made sense. Even the identity of this ruin.
How could an artifact of the ancient Mage King still remain intact? It wasn’t only mages who followed the Mage King’s overwhelming power. There were quite a few knights who did the same.
Some swore allegiance, captivated by the Mage King’s overwhelming power, while others made nominal pledges of loyalty, which were practically acts of surrender.
The Mage King bestowed tokens to those who followed him, whether they were loyal subjects or false adherents. For some, it was an honor; for others, it was a humiliation.
This ruin…
“It must have been a castle or estate bestowed by the Mage King. The signal received by the Ten Towers was a magical beacon, a trap set up by the ancient knight families.”
The fact that they still had the means to carry out such a plan was surprising. The knight families were thought to have all fallen with the passage of time, but it seemed they had hidden themselves underground like the superstition followers.
Talo traced the history of magical society. There were far too many knight families that had gradually disappeared under the dominance of magic. If this was a form of assimilation into an underground organization disguised as their downfall…
‘Their scale must be quite vast. They could easily surpass a decent magic tower.’
The reason for disguising their actions as Argyrion’s to lure out the Ten Towers was simple. It was an unprecedentedly chaotic time for the Ten Towers-led order.
If an elder of the Ten Towers were assassinated under such circumstances, the reputation of the tower to which that elder belonged would suffer a significant blow.
‘There’s no guarantee that this scheme is a one-time thing. They’ll probably continue with similar plots.’
The fate awaiting the fallen Ten Towers was clear: a succession war.
The remnants of the knight families aimed to play the role of shadow manipulators, pulling the strings behind the scenes for a magic tower with ambitions of becoming the new Ten Tower during the succession war.
Or perhaps it was the other way around. Maybe a certain magic tower seeking to initiate a succession war had approached the knight remnants, offering, “Help us, and we’ll reintegrate you into mainstream society.”
But that plan had been disrupted by the appearance of the real Argyrion. Their improvised attempt to disguise themselves as Argyrion’s reinforcements and assassinate the Ten Towers mage had also failed.
Having finished his deductions, Talo shook his head.
“They’re as crude as the outdated stragglers they are, wielding such clumsy blades. But it was amusing.”
For knights to resort to using traps after drawing their swords—it was a truly pathetic fall from grace for those who claimed to uphold chivalry.
“A body cultivated to the extreme with martial energy. Whatever it is, it’ll be useful if I take it with me. I should also look into his memories.”
Mana gathered in Talo’s hand. He was preparing to cast a transmutation directly on Orthes’ body as he charged. Given his martial energy, he might resist somewhat, but if Talo poured his own mana into it, the outcome would be different.
‘I’ll process everything except the brain and organs right here.’
At the same time, several layers of defensive magic unfolded. At the core of these spells was an anti-martial energy field designed to block assassination droids.
It was a spell that reacted to martial energy, drastically increasing the mana density within the field to nullify any attacks. Just as a person’s movements are hindered in water, where the density is greater than air, the spell interfered with the movements of any objects imbued with martial energy.
Orthes’ black blade touched the field. Talo anticipated Orthes slowing down and reached out his hand. The moment his fingertips made contact, that arm would turn to scrap.
But the anti-martial energy field was pierced effortlessly, and Talo’s head was split in half.