Ch.146Turbulence (8)

The magic bombs, meticulously arranged according to the principles of magic circles, were designed to create a more powerful explosion using mana conduits as lines. That was why Ortes was shocked when he saw the mana conduits.

From the moment the magic bombs received the detonation signal, the mana conduits became part of the explosive spell. The infrastructure laid throughout the city was ingeniously repurposed into a single magic circle.

Ortes was appalled by this insane concept, but what could he do?

Hiding one’s trump card until the very end. Using the opponent’s hand against them. Carisia had learned all of this from Ortes himself.

Ortes was beginning to suspect that even the original White Nameless would be horrified by Carisia’s explosive instincts.

He closed his eyes. Not because he had given up on life. Though Carisia had created a more powerful explosion, it didn’t necessarily translate to a “larger” explosion.

The tedious task of drawing a magic circle using mana conduits was done to ensure the explosive force wasn’t wasted but concentrated at a single point. Ortes used all the strength in his eyes and legs to distance himself from where the explosion would be concentrated.

The focal point of the explosion would be the Amimone Magic Tower. Ortes could deduce the entire pattern from the part of the magic circle he had read. The magic bombs were arranged in a hexagram shape with the Amimone Magic Tower at its center.

All the destruction generated by the magic bombs would be concentrated on the Amimone Magic Tower. Ortes wondered if even a trace of the tower would remain, let alone its foundation stones. Just as he began to contemplate this—

A flash.

The light was so intense that an ordinary human’s optic nerve would have been instantly blinded. Even with his eyes closed, his vision was washed in pure white.

Ortes had closed his eyes for a reason similar to protecting them from blindness. While his eyes wouldn’t be damaged by merely strong light, the sheer volume of magical information that Carisia had meticulously designed was the kind that would strike not the eyes, but the brain.

Closing his eyes to block the information at its source was Ortes’s best option.

***

On the surface, the heat and light concentrated at the tower reached all the way to the underground. The matter at the center where the tower had stood vaporized in an instant. Materials broken down below the level of existence that could possess physical properties transformed into brilliantly sparkling fragments of light.

The parasite was bewildered. There hadn’t even been an incantation.

No, it was beyond the absence of an incantation. Mana was continuously gathering there. The preparation phase wasn’t even complete yet.

“How—”

“How did I cast the spell, you ask?”

Carisia smiled fiercely. It was a smile filled with mockery, derision, and the exhilaration of having completely defeated her opponent.

“How stupid. I activated it three minutes ago.”

Firepower strong enough to distort space itself formed a massive pillar of light. What proved fatal was that the decomposed space had reconverged at the end of the fable.

The pillar of light, large enough to engulf the entire Amimone Tower building, was perfect for vaporizing the parasite’s physical body and divine form, which had been constructed by restructuring the tower’s space.

A violence of light swept through, erasing even the sound of screams. A white light so bright it could blind human eyes.

Using the moment when the white light blinded everyone, Carisia concealed herself once more. There was no need to pay further attention to the dead. She intended to go find Ortes.

***

“How are you feeling?”

“Dizzy.”

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was hair whiter than the flash from earlier. I answered with a bitter smile.

“Boss, were you trying to kill me?”

“Oh, it’s fine. I checked beforehand.”

“Checked?”

Carisia pulled out the Crystal of Phoibos from her pocket and showed it to me.

“If you were in danger, it would have shown me a vision. Even when I was determined to blow everything up, it didn’t show me anything.”

“Haha, damn. That’s quite bold of you.”

Not because she had precisely designed the spell to prevent the blast from reaching underground, but because her logic was that since the death detection device didn’t activate, I wouldn’t die. It was hard to argue with that reasoning, knowing the device’s capabilities.

“That thing doesn’t always work properly, you know.”

I tried to recall the descriptions from the original work. Beings beyond the power of sacred artifacts… like gods, couldn’t be perfectly foreseen. In the original story, this wasn’t an issue since the Demon King himself was a “god-like being.”

‘Come to think of it, have I ever seen Carisia face off against multiple elders at once?’

It was fortunate that the device could foresee up to the Ten Tower Elders, the worst opponents one might normally encounter.

“Is that so? Tell me more about it when we get back. I need to take note of that.”

Somehow I could hear the length of my report growing. I took Carisia’s outstretched hand and stood up.

***

As for what had been the Amimone Magic Tower…

Nothing remained.

Absolutely nothing. It wasn’t just a matter of foundation stones; the mana core had completely vaporized. The heart of the tower was gone.

And it wasn’t as if any extremities remained either. All that was left were the branch facilities of the Amimone Magic Tower.

It was like a situation where the patient died but only the organs they were supposed to receive remained. If Knemon became the tower master, he might be able to gather the branch facilities and somehow rebuild a tower.

But with the mana core vaporized, inheriting the status of a proper magic tower would be impossible.

“Boss, by the way, how are you planning to handle this explosion?”

“I’ll blame it on Argyrion, of course.”

Argyrion had infiltrated during the tower master selection, and we managed to prevent their minion from taking the tower master position. However, due to the suicide bombing of Argyrion spies, the mana core was unfortunately destroyed…

This scenario seemed plausible enough. Better than the truth that Carisia had blown up the Amimone Tower with bombs.

If that truth came to light, Panoptes would be the least of our concerns. The Ten Tower Elders would hunt us down relentlessly.

“I wonder what will happen if we pin this on Argyrion.”

Argyrion had already crossed the line with the Ten Towers multiple times. With the addition of this fatal provocation—the complete annihilation of a proper magic tower—the Ten Towers would likely abandon any pretense of face or honor.

“War will break out. The spatial movement that the Argyrion executive you killed recently used for invasion, and the spatial magic this parasite used to connect its body to another dimension—they’ll use these two clues to search for Argyrion’s headquarters.”

“Twice. Theoretically, detecting spatial coordinates is possible, but the required manpower would be astronomical. Even with support from the Ten Realms, it would be a grand undertaking requiring the entire Ten Towers…”

The moment the coordinate verification is complete, the Ten Towers would launch a counter-invasion against Argyrion’s headquarters. A situation where even a personal campaign by the tower masters could be cautiously anticipated.

I reviewed each of the things Argyrion had done, or was believed to have done.

The all-out declaration of war at Elysion. The disruption of magical society through tower infiltration. The assassination of a Ten Tower Elder. And now, following the betrayal of a proper tower master, the bombing of the Amimone Tower with an “if I can’t have it, I’ll destroy it” mentality.

These were more than enough to push the Ten Towers’ patience to its limit.

Somehow about half of these seemed to be my work, but honestly, there had been at least one person of Argyrion origin at each scene.

At the Great Temple of Pluto, I wouldn’t have been able to perform so well against Talos without the angelified Argyrion agents.

While the Amimone Tower Master hadn’t colluded with Argyrion, there had indeed been traitors from the Amimone Tower, and…

The mental parasite had already shattered the tower before Carisia completely vaporized the Amimone Tower.

…Wait. That last one clearly isn’t my responsibility.

I stared at Carisia. Noticing my gaze, she slightly raised the corner of her mouth.

“It seems we’re approaching the final stages of the plan, doesn’t it?”

No. I hadn’t meant to convey pride or joy. But I was, inevitably, a company employee. My mouth naturally began to offer flattery directed at my superior.

“Progress is much faster than expected. If we’re lucky and the tower master leaves their post, it seems we could attempt the final stage of the plan much earlier.”

I had estimated about three years until the Demon King’s resurrection. I had expected that we could only bring down the White Light after the war between the Ten Towers and the Demon King began.

If the Ten Towers move as expected this time…

“…It will be a turbulent era.”

“Yes. Whether we should use that turbulence to activate the final plan or wait a bit longer is something we’ll need to discuss.”

Carisia remembered my prophecy about the Demon King’s resurrection.

If we succeeded in destroying the Ten Realms of White Light while the White Light Tower Master was on a personal campaign against Argyrion, the White Light Tower would certainly walk the path of downfall.

But could the Ten Towers, having lost one of the Ten Realms, still face the Demon King?

In this turbulent era, that was the question Carisia and I had to answer.