Ch.176The Ten Commandments Frontline (3)

Through this process, Lampades stood on the grounds of the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower. He held the liberated Thunder Spirit Orb in his hand, converting the endless magical power of the Tenth Circle to prepare a grand spell.

To those unaware of the behind-the-scenes circumstances involving Hydra Sa and Ortes, he might have appeared like a new standard-bearer ready to create a new era.

How sublime must be the realm of a Tower Master who could prepare such an enormous spell within the domain of the Ten Towers? The wild world that the Ten Towers had not been watching. A hidden dragon (潛龍) emerging from the solver industry.

But such a spectacle would never spread throughout the magical society.

First.

“The true capabilities of the Thunder Spirit Orb must remain secret. I believe you understand why.”

Ortes did not want it revealed.

Second.

“Tower Master. We’ve successfully connected to the line as you instructed! Next—”

“Yes. It’s my turn.”

From now on, all magical communications near the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower would be neutralized.

The spell Lampades was preparing wasn’t meant to interfere with the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower’s communications. Rather, it was the opposite.

His strategy was to generate countless communications, paralyzing message transmission and reception in a flood of traffic.

While the Tenth Circle had no limits, he exploited the fact that magicians and enchantware below the Tenth Circle did have limitations. He would continuously transmit noise until the communication devices reached their processing limits.

It was a very classical method of attacking the Ether Space.

However, attempting this against the Ten Towers was an entirely different matter.

Until now, no one had succeeded in such an attack against the Ten Towers because it required both the ability to hijack the Ten Towers’ dedicated lines and magical capacity to deploy grand magic against the Tenth Circle’s control.

Only Lampades could accomplish this, having acquired the dedicated line address from Blasphemia via Kriel, and supplying the necessary magical power from the Thunder Spirit Orb.

Additionally, the highest administrator of the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower’s Ether Space was in a comatose state. The most crucial element in an Ether Space attack is rapid response time. However, the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower’s immediate response had been blocked.

As long as the vertical hierarchy between the Tower Master and the Elders remained intact.

After creating chaos in the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower, Lampades looked around. From now on, communication would only be possible through voice.

“Hector!”

The old man who had been slaughtering the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower’s artificial spirits at the frontline retreated swiftly. None of the tower’s sentinels could stop his movement.

Hector arrived at the command center—the place that could be considered Lampades Magic Tower’s headquarters—where a giant radar was installed.

“Is it time already?”

Lampades nodded. He never thought he would end up collaborating with priests of the old religious order with his own hands.

It was time to bring out a communication method now treated as an ancient relic.

A concave disc like a radar. However, what it contained was not precise circuitry for receiving radio waves, but kindling including firewood and several catalysts for producing colored smoke.

Lampades created a spark with electric light. Fire was placed on the kindling.

Red smoke shot up toward the sky.

***

The clergy of the Divine Life Order were positioned at a distance where the smoke wouldn’t be visible. It wouldn’t have been wise for them to approach so close to the domain of the Ten Towers.

Yet sometimes, one can know without seeing.

Demos rose resolutely and shouted.

“The beacon has been lit—! Prepare for war!”

What Lampades had lit was a simple beacon. Compared to the formal beacons of ancient times, it was modest, and even its smoke wasn’t clear.

However, it was a signal for war. The harbinger (嚆矢) calling for struggle. The moment the red smoke reached the sky, Demos instinctively knew this. The high priest of Enyalios demonstrated his divine power without reservation.

Among the forms of sacrifices offered to gods, burnt offerings (燔祭) originally meant sacrifices where something was burned. Lighting a beacon was a burnt offering, and the war it signified was the highest tribute to Enyalios, whom Demos served.

For he was the god of war.

As if responding to Demos’s cry, Prodito opened the door.

“Revenge is at hand. How does it feel, uncle?”

Demos looked at the boy with sunken eyes.

“What meaning is there in feelings before completion? I’ll tell you after it’s done.”

“How cool!”

Prodito clapped his hands. And so, the golden door opened.

This was the final stage of Ortes’s plan to conquer the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower. The early termination of the succession battle through the assassination of Hector, Lampades, and Demos.

The victory condition for the succession battle was ‘seizing the Tenth Circle,’ not subjugating the tower. Originally, tower subjugation and Tenth Circle seizure were inseparable. One had to subdue the Tower Master, the Ten Towers’ strongest force, to obtain the Tenth Circle.

However, with Prodito’s divine power involved and the Yellow Thunder Tower Master’s special situation, the story changed.

The Ten Towers’ elders or forces didn’t matter. The moment the Tower Master was defeated and the highest authority of the Tenth Circle changed, everything else became meaningless.

The Yellow Thunder Magic Tower’s security system issued an emergency alert detecting the divine power of teleportation. It was a notification that superstition followers had been detected.

But this desperate warning was ignored. It wasn’t that the Yellow Thunder Magic Tower underestimated the danger of superstition followers as less threatening than the current challenger.

The Yellow Thunder Magic Tower treated this message itself as false.

“Damn! Another false alarm! Fighting so pettily. Typical of those inferior magicians outside the tower!”

Among the indiscriminate messages Lampades had sent were alerts about detecting superstition followers.

Truth is misled by countless repetitions of falsehood. This was an improvised modification Lampades added to Ortes’s plan.

In fact, the period of exchange between Lampades and Ortes had also been quite long.

Long enough to be influenced.

***

Regarding the Tenth Circle revolution, Ortes focused on three magic towers. The highest priority was naturally White Light.

Following that was Yellow Thunder. Finally, Green Wood.

The reason Green Wood was singled out was simple. While there were no plans to attempt anything with Green Wood’s Tenth Circle, its Tower Master remained in residence like the other two towers. If by chance the Tower Master interfered with other Tenth Circle fronts, there was a high risk of disrupting the grand plan.

Therefore, Green Wood was also designated to declare a succession battle before the White Light’s succession battle ended. However, its purpose differed from Yellow Thunder or White Light.

While the prime directive for the Yellow Thunder and White Light fronts was ‘victory,’ the core of the Green Wood front was ‘delay.’ Make Green Wood’s Tower Master focus solely on defending their tower rather than projecting power externally. It was closer to diversion than struggle.

Ortes deployed a plant-attribute magic tower alliance connected through Mekonion’s network for this operation. It was the most suitable personnel selection for conducting a delaying action.

If the Yellow Thunder front was the ultimate blitzkrieg, the Green Wood front was its opposite. Unlike the Yellow Thunder front’s combat pattern, which forcibly created an environment for using magical power by mobilizing all abilities of Lampades, the Divine Life Order, and the Knight Alliance, the Green Wood front slowly increased magical dominance, faithful to the basics of succession battles.

The structure of the Green Wood Magic Tower resembled a tree. A circulatory system that transmitted and absorbed the Tenth Circle’s magical power through roots or leaves.

They would gradually collapse this circulation using parasitic plants introduced from outside to lower the Tenth Circle’s control. However, due to the nature of plants, it would take considerable time to break down the circulatory system.

No clear conflict would occur immediately. But the Tower Master couldn’t leave their post either. An ambiguous attack that could instill an appropriate sense of crisis.

That was Ortes’s plan.

One branch of the magic tower alliance’s forces showed surprisingly orderly movements. It was a disciplined action as if even their shadows marched in formation. The other tower masters in the alliance secretly admired and envied the unexpected strength shown by a medium-small scale tower named Minte Magic Tower.

Gulp, the shadows beneath their feet squirmed.

Most of the magic towers and magicians deployed to the Green Wood front were gathered through connections with Mekonion.

Mekonion had selected them with utmost care. Not his main clientele of drug addicts, but proper magicians who had contacted him for academic research, focusing on his semi-spirit lineage. Second-tier magic towers aspiring to the first tier, who could challenge formal magic towers given the opportunity.

But that was the problem. Magic towers with enough curiosity and initiative to reach Mekonion at the bottom of magical society. Yet without the scale of a formal magic tower, having appropriate capabilities to be equal trading partners with Mekonion.

These were optimal conditions for seeking contact when Arguirion was still hiding their identity. The temptation of offering wisdom comparable to or greater than formal magic towers through mysterious artifacts.

Sprigo¹, the plant-attribute magician killed by Ortes in Algoth City, was a recruiter for these individuals. Sprigo, who had reached the level of transforming himself into a plant, appeared as an unparalleled mystery to the Minte Magic Tower.

The Minte Magic Tower had enough ambition to use Arguirion to grow their influence but lacked the insight to perceive their true nature. Those who received the truth and awakened to the cause served as Arguirion’s eyes and ears, conveying rumors and information from the lowest levels of magical society.

The Ten Towers overthrow plan that Ortes must have prepared. Haltos decided to mobilize Arguirion’s forces to reclaim the Tenth Circle.

Haltos revealed a piece of truth he had acquired over a long time.

“If you cannot win…”

Join them.