Ch.141Turbulence (3)

Hearing that the mana core was ominous, I couldn’t help but massage my temples.

As its name suggests, the mana core is the central component of a magic tower. Even if everything else, including the tower’s arcane magic, is intact, a defective mana core means the entire tower is defective.

‘So that tower Knemon is supposed to receive is actually a false listing.’

“Since when?” I asked.

The time spent between Carisia and me had created a relationship where such truncated sentences could be easily understood. After briefly furrowing her brow, Carisia’s answer differed from the timeframe I had expected.

“About three days ago?”

It was a truly ambiguous timing. I had thought the unsettling atmosphere began right after my confrontation with the psychic parasite. Or at the latest, when the Divine Light Order began their pursuit.

Three days ago would have been after I conducted a sort of intermediary trade between Blasphemia and the Divine Light Order. It was also some time after the priests had diagnosed that no trace of the parasite could be detected.

Thinking rationally, it was most likely that the competition committee had made a mistake while preparing the final test barrier, causing mana impurities.

Or perhaps the mana core’s output had decreased because they had been continuously drawing mana from the city’s mana network to maintain the barrier.

But I had a certain conviction.

The term ‘rational thinking’ shouldn’t be used carelessly.

Was Blasphemia thinking irrationally in the Golden Desert? They tried to assassinate Carisia and me with perfectly rational schemes, only to disappear when faced with an extra-dimensional storm from beyond rationality.

Even the Archmage himself—would he have expected his disciples to stab him in the back so skillfully after he had divided his inheritance and was ready to ascend?

In my opinion, the term ‘rational thinking’ was clearly a luxury that could only be used after all situations had been neatly concluded.

Therefore, what I needed now was irrational thinking to match an irrational situation.

“If it’s that ominous, let’s go check it out,” I said.

“Isn’t the master’s chamber of Anemone Tower sealed until the decisive battle ends?” Carisia asked.

Her words carried another implication: Are you prepared to knock out all the sealing mages, erase the sealing magic with a laser beam, and boldly charge in?

Naturally, I had no such intention. Unlike Carisia, who occasionally displayed a combative nature with an aura suggesting “Ah, it’s time to return to being Baekmumeong,” I was someone who believed that the less combat, the better.

“Haha. There may be no door that won’t open for Ortes, the chief secretary of House Hydra.”

So naturally, my solution would be ‘dialogue.’

“But what about Blasphemia Secret Inspector L13?”

I sent a message to Niobe, the head of Blasphemia in Algoth City.

***

While Ortes laughed, shouting a strange slogan—”Hahaha! Power! Unlimited power!”—Carisia prepared to infiltrate the master’s chamber with him.

Ortes briefly ‘inspecting’ the master’s chamber as a secret inspector and Carisia accompanying the inspection as sponsor of tower master candidate Knemon were not comparable situations.

A camouflage spell manipulating visible light enveloped Carisia’s body. Her transparent form lacked even the slightest sense of incongruity or refraction distortion typically found in images seen through glass or water.

Niobe, responding to Ortes’s contact, met with him in a secluded location.

“Even coming from you, senior, this is a bit dangerous…”

Though Niobe expressed reluctance, the moment she began with “Even coming from you” meant half the battle was won. It meant she trusted Ortes’s abrupt claim that “something seems wrong with the mana core.”

“Senior, can’t you postpone this for just half a day? The tower master selection will be over by then. You could enter as a sponsor without any issues.”

“It might already be too late, which is why I’m asking. In ordinary times, such orthodox methods would be appropriate, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, don’t you think?”

Carisia saw Niobe’s eyes fill with a complex mixture of trust, admiration, and goodwill. Though not entirely pleased with this look, Carisia knew that the Blasphemia agent’s emotions would make things proceed smoothly, so she let it be for now.

Niobe pondered, resting her chin between her thumb and index finger. From this contemplative posture, Carisia realized their plan would succeed.

People who deliberated in front of Ortes inevitably ended up persuaded.

“One hour. Our people won’t complain about senior’s business, but the time we can divert attention from other Panoptes agents in the master’s chamber is limited.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll finish before then.”

Ortes winked.

To Niobe, it appeared as a glib gesture, but Carisia understood the true meaning behind that movement.

Ortes was preparing to open his eyes.

***

“Huh?”

This was Ortes’s bewildered utterance in front of Anemone Tower as he prepared to enter unnoticed.

The tower exploded.

More precisely, it was a sight that would appear as destruction only to others’ eyes. To Ortes’s eyes, the fragments of the broken tower weren’t ‘destroyed’ in the physical sense.

Space was distorted. All sorts of experimental tools and objects inside the tower became visible from outside, while the tower’s exterior cladding was carved into pieces in the sky above.

It was like hundreds of images depicting the tower’s interior and exterior were scattered across Algoth City’s celestial sphere as if on a silver screen. Then these spatial images began to divide into smaller pieces. From walls to bricks, from bricks to sand.

Space was being broken down into increasingly smaller fragments. The phrase ‘assembly is the reverse of disassembly’ flashed through Ortes’s mind.

However, it was doubtful whether the space, once reassembled after such decomposition, would still be a ‘magic tower.’ Perhaps a ‘magical beast’ instead.

“Niobe! Call Blasphemia! Something is casting magic from inside, and if we apply mana from outside, we should be able to counteract it somehow!”

The improvisation that burst from Ortes’s mouth had its own utility. At the foundation of any magic lies the law of will that controls and manipulates mana. If impurities could be introduced into the magical formula, the magic could fail or at least be forced into partial success.

Therefore, Ortes’s words were both instructions to Niobe and a request to Carisia, who was hiding right beside him.

Carisia thought:

‘He didn’t specify how to apply the mana, did he?’

As always, she preferred straightforward methods.

If Ortes had glimpsed into Carisia’s mind, he would have called her method simple-minded and crude.

“Huh?”

The same sound that escaped when witnessing the tower’s explosion came out unconsciously. Ortes didn’t know it, but Nastion, who was watching the metamorphosis from the darkness, was expressing his astonishment with the same word.

The sky distorted. It was fundamentally the same as the spatial distortion occurring when a psychic parasite metamorphosed to make the tower its body.

However, it was clear that this spatial distortion was not the work of a psychic parasite.

There was no magical evidence, but Nastion could be certain.

Because it had begun to burn Anemone Tower.

The circular, ring-shaped distortion in the sky acted like a convex lens, concentrating light at a single point. So intensely that it seemed the eyes of observers might catch fire if it grew any brighter.

Then came the moment when the concentrated light reached a critical point. The focus collecting the converged light changed.

Not toward the empty space in front of the spatial lens, but toward Anemone Tower.

A beam of light scorched the sky of Algoth City.

***

He said to apply mana.

He didn’t say to destroy it.

I observed how the tower, which had received the mana injection—or beam attack in Ten Towers terminology—was reacting. The decomposition speed had clearly slowed, but the process continued steadily, albeit slowly.

It meant additional mana was being supplied from somewhere. I immediately looked down at the ground. Underground, where mana pipes were laid to collect excess mana from the atmosphere and transfer it to the tower.

Naturally, the mana pipes continued to supply mana to the tower.

Carisia’s death beam had bought us time, but at this rate, Carisia would be the first to exhaust her mana.

I could see the Blasphemia members Niobe was bringing. Thanks to Carisia physically suppressing the parasite’s transformation, we had gained time.

We needed to make the most of this extra time. What cards could we play through Blasphemia right now? Which would be most effective?

As soon as I formulated the question specifically, my judgment was complete.

The barrier prepared for the tower master selection.

If a high-level barrier that completely separates inside from outside were installed around Anemone Tower, the connection between the mana pipes and the mana core would be severed. The mana needed for the parasite’s metamorphosis would naturally be depleted.

That way, we could at least preserve the foundation of Anemone Tower. We couldn’t tell Knemon “Sorry, but the tower has disappeared” when he returned victorious.

I called out to Niobe:

“Everyone, over here!”

Niobe nodded vigorously and replied:

“All units, attack the Anemone Tower undergoing extra-dimensional transformation!”

Hey.