Ch.177The Ten Commandments Frontline (4)

The battle at the Greenwood Front unfolded in a manner completely different from Ortes’s expectations.

Originally, the Greenwood Front should have been a “peaceful” battle—absurd as that sounds—where offensive magic was rarely exchanged.

The attacking side would slowly grow plants, while the defending side would overturn their roots. If one side merely wanted to stall for time, they might have had to invest months in cultivating siege plants designed to destroy circulatory systems.

However, Arguirion’s intervention changed everything. Arguirion supplied the Minte Magic Tower, which carried on the will of their comrade Sprigo, with angelification drugs.

They all simultaneously injected the angelification drugs into their chests. And then charged forward fiercely.

Confusion began to spread across the front line. Such movements had not been agreed upon. Real combat was supposed to begin only after the first war of the secret sponsor had ended in victory.

What were they suddenly doing?

Even if one suspected they might be traitors planted by the Ten Towers, the direction of their charge made it even more confusing—if they were truly traitors, they would have charged in the opposite direction.

What was the point of betrayal without a counter-charge?

The other members of the Magic Tower Alliance made a sensible judgment: the Minte Magic Tower was trying to show initiative in the current operation to secure a favorable position in future merit evaluations.

The magic towers, which valued safety above all else, mocked the Minte Magic Tower for their foolish decision. As with most wars, the vanguard naturally suffered the greatest losses in the war against the Ten Towers.

This was because the Ten Realms’ control was stronger in the early stages of war, making it difficult to use magical power. They had rushed forward for greater rewards, but now the entire magic tower faced potential annihilation.

Conversely, those with ambitions similar to the Minte Magic Tower grew impatient. What if they gained access to the Greenwood Realm before us?

What if Hydra Sa valued them highly?

But they too had common sense, so rather than overtaking the Minte Magic Tower in their charge, they merely followed closely behind, advancing somewhat faster than normal.

Thus, the situation at the Greenwood Front was divided into three groups: the Minte Magic Tower at the very front, other Magic Tower Alliance members pursuing them, and the majority of the Alliance’s mages remaining in the rear.

And this was their fatal mistake.

Upon reaching Greenwood’s first barrier, the Minte Magic Tower mages suddenly began shedding their human forms. The arborification magic established by Sprigo.

Arguirion’s silver blessing settled upon the Minte mages. Through angelification, the mages who had transcended human limitations realized that their powers were no longer constrained by magical energy.

Mana itself was controlled by their gestures. The power of the silver gift to convert magical energy into mana sought its prey.

The circulatory system created by the Greenwood Magic Tower was robust. It couldn’t be attacked recklessly without a primer.

So the human trees of the Minte Magic Tower chose as their first sacrifices the other mages who had been following them.

The Alliance mages, bewildered by the sudden change in circumstances, were engulfed in a flood of tree roots.

The moment a tree root pierced any part of their body, it rapidly grew along their blood vessels. Silver threads that penetrated to the very ends of the human body, to each and every capillary, instantly squeezed out their life force.

Mages could be seen transforming into thin lines in an instant. Those who were at a distance couldn’t understand this bizarre phenomenon, but they knew they needed to flee immediately.

That distinctive silver color.

“Arguirion!”

How could they be here? Had they arrived by evading the Ten Towers’ expeditionary force?

Impossible. Less than a day had passed since the Ten Towers’ expeditionary force had departed. Even the expeditionary forces themselves couldn’t have reached Arguirion’s main base yet.

It was then, as confusion spread like an infection.

A sea of trees formed by silver trees. In the center, branches from different trees intertwined to create a strange formation.

A throne made of silver trees. A man stood there.

He confidently proclaimed:

“Hydra Sa! As promised, we have arrived!”

In an instant, the Magic Tower Alliance’s attention focused on Haltos. Confusion deepened at these shocking words. They had no time to look at their feet.

It was then that Nastion moved. He burrowed into the shadows of the stationary Alliance members. Moments later, when the mages regained their senses, they realized their bodies were pinned in place, unable to move.

Then Arguirion’s executives moved. They used spatial magic without restraint. Passages connecting the spaces where tree roots existed with the spaces where Alliance mages stood. Silver tentacles flooded through these passages.

With this simple method, the number of fertilizers fed to the human trees soared. Haltos smiled with satisfaction.

Of course, though they had bought time, the period during which the mages stopped fleeing was very brief. In terms of the entire Magic Tower Alliance’s numbers, they probably hadn’t captured even 20 percent.

But the growth of the trees itself wasn’t the main objective. The strategy Haltos had embedded in this declaration was slander against Hydra Sa.

After carefully examining the flow of events so far—though he had been certain even before that—Haltos had determined that all reasons for Arguirion becoming a target of the Ten Towers stemmed from Ortes’s subtle manipulation abilities.

If one couldn’t defeat Ortes’s schemes, it was only right to join them. Hence, he had abandoned his main base and participated in the Ten Realms Revolution.

But merely joining wasn’t enough to defeat Ortes. So Haltos prepared a second contingency plan.

If all his strategies were useless against Ortes, then he could use Ortes’s methods against him.

And so the agitation and fabrication that Ortes had spread throughout the magical society were now proclaimed through Haltos’s mouth.

In the minds of those now fleeing would be imprinted the shocking fact that “Hydra Sa is behind Arguirion.”

This would be a weakness that would continuously hinder Ortes after this battle. Could Ortes silence all their mouths?

No. Could he immediately silence the ears and mouth of Greenwood? Having proclaimed our arrival, Greenwood would unhesitatingly request help.

Thus, Hydra Sa would become a public enemy of the magical society, just like Arguirion.

Confident that the first stage of his plan had been successfully implemented, Haltos moved quickly.

Arguirion’s reason for existence was to create a passage for the Great Cause to descend into this world. It was regrettable that the “gateway” being produced at Arguirion’s main base had been consumed in fabricating a trap for the Ten Towers’ expeditionary force, but it was not cause for despair.

The infinite magical power of the Ten Realms could sufficiently destroy the dimensional wall. The final piece for the descent of the Great Cause was right before their eyes.

“Let’s go! Silver apostles!”

“Truth and the Great Cause!”

Arguirion shouted. Unlike natural trees, the Minte human-trees, capable of moving each root and branch, lifted their bodies. The silver forest advanced toward Greenwood.

***

Kore, the priestess of Pluto, was tasked with battlefield surveillance in the Ten Realms Revolution. She did not possess the same far-seeing sacred arts as the priests of Phoibos.

However, Kore had the ability to hear the voices of the dead. Her sacred arts, amplified by the Great Temple of Pluto, could encompass the entire Ten Realms front within her sphere of influence.

Such extreme amplification could not be without side effects. Originally, the powers bestowed by the Great Temple varied according to rank but were granted to all priests of Pluto within the temple.

But now Kore was bearing all those powers alone. Enhancement beyond the originally set limits. While the Great Temple’s enhancement was in effect, her life would be chipped away in real-time.

Yet it was a burden she had to bear. Through the fervent persuasion of the moderate Demos, both the Priestess faction and the Pope faction had agreed to join hands for this operation.

A single revolution to end all persecution awaited them.

To persuade Kore, Demos had asked if she was afraid that Ortes might be associated with the Ten Towers. Though Kore believed Ortes was not merely associated with the Ten Towers but their creator, it was a similar sentiment.

Kore affirmed. The fear of “the being behind Ortes” that she had seen in the Great Temple of Pluto. Undoubtedly the “vanished mage.”

In their meeting, Demos had secretly said that Ortes’s master was indeed a being originating from the Ten Towers.

However, that didn’t mean Ortes was an enemy of the Divine Faith Order. To summarize Demos’s words, “Ortes has a plan to use the incarnation of the Ten Realms to strike at the Ten Towers.”¹

Kore honestly wondered if Demos had fallen into some kind of brainwashed state, but no matter what sacred arts she used to investigate, he was in his right mind.

The situation was also too good. If not for this fight at this decisive juncture, there seemed no way to bring down the entire Ten Towers.

So Kore set aside her fears for a moment and decided to lend her hand to Hydra Sa’s plan.

Her role was that of a control tower, understanding the battle situation by listening to the voices of the fallen. If the number of allied casualties suddenly increased at any point, she would know that enemy attacks were concentrated there.

According to the operation plan, Kore was to move in earnest only after the fall of Baekgwang. But she intended to activate the powers of the Great Temple from now on, both to minimize the time required for the Great Temple’s mobilization and to get accustomed to the pain from the overload.

And to her ears came a terrifying scream.

***

At the top of the Baekgwang Magic Tower. Ortes had cut through all of Baekgwang’s protective devices at once and barged in.

It was no longer a space where the laws of reality applied. The size of the space itself was different.

An endless night sky stretched out. Outside, the blue sky was still spread.

Splash. Ortes realized there was water at his feet. Water so shallow it didn’t even reach his ankles. The crystal-clear water reflected the starlight from above.

Ortes was reminded of Earth’s salt desert. The scenery of the sky descended to the ground below.

The Milky Way, which circled the celestial sphere, had come down to the ground and formed a circle. A halo of starlight spanning both sky and ground. A ring of light reminiscent of an annular solar eclipse.

In the center of that ring stood a person.

Spotlessly white hair. Golden eyes that contained the starlight she had made her halo.

She looked remarkably similar to Carisia, but unlike Carisia’s pitch-black formal attire, she wore a white dress that matched the color of her hair.

It was Baekgwang.