Ch.185The Ten Commandments Frontline (6)

The succession battle for the Yellow Thunder Tower ended prematurely. Ortes had judged that Hector’s Knights were originally capable of conquering a Tower of Ten like this one where the Tower Master was absent.

Before attacking their assigned tower, these knights joined forces with the Lampades Tower to assault the Yellow Thunder Tower.

Most of the Yellow Thunder elders had been dispatched to the Arguirion expedition, and the Tower Master was in a comatose state.

Under the relentless attacks from the Lampades Tower and the knights, Yellow Thunder had no choice but to retreat from the frontlines.

With the effective absence of the highest authority, proper command was impossible. The elders failed to reach consensus, and their solution to salvage the collapsing front line was to appear on the battlefield themselves.

Essentially, each unit led by an elder operated under an independent command structure. In the midst of this chaos, with even communications breaking down, the Divine Faith Order struck the most lethal blow.

Using Lampades’ radar to identify coordinates and teleporting through Prodito’s holy city, assassination squads were dispatched to the Tower Master’s presence.

Not the Yellow Thunder Tower Master’s consciousness, but his survival-oriented auxiliary brain initiated emergency protocols. A cold artificial intelligence taking over for the comatose self. It sent electrical currents directly into the nervous system to control the left half of the body that should have been paralyzed.

Controlling the left side was much faster than the right side, which was still under the influence of consciousness. Destructive lightning erupted from the Yellow Thunder Tower Master’s left hand.

Demos charged forward with a savage laugh. In his hand was one of the holy relics that had regained its former power—a spear blade reforged, though its name had long been buried.

He simultaneously used holy power and battle qi. Enveloped in a blood-red current like a bloody wind, Demos stretched his right arm holding the spear far back. Muscles pulsating, he twisted his entire body and threw the spear. The rotation that began at his toes reached his fingertips, and the destructive spiral force was fully transferred into the thrown spear.

The red spear flew, shattering the golden lightning. Lightning fragments scattered everywhere, but Demos paid no heed. In his tightly clenched left hand, battle qi and holy power surged in fusion.

With only half a body functioning, the survival program couldn’t eliminate this superstition follower.

Sensing the crisis, the survival program now attempted to take control of not just the left half but also the right half of the Tower Master’s body. It prioritized physical survival even if it meant minimizing the self’s domain. Memories are merely neural sparks—they can be restored as long as one lives.

But at that moment, Hector moved like a flash of lightning.

His attack wasn’t aimed at the Yellow Thunder Tower Master. With fierce precision, he struck at what appeared to be empty air.

Yet invisibility doesn’t mean nonexistence. Hector had targeted the magical formula that the survival program was extending toward the Tower Master.

His sword, rippling with battle qi, pierced through the center of the formless spell. At that moment, the spell materialized—geometric patterns glowing gold shattered into tiny fragments, creating a golden mess.

The light of the Ten Commandments flickered repeatedly, trying to transmit magical power to control the Tower Master’s right half, but each time, Hector’s sword flashed. No matter how many times the survival program requested magical power, Hector’s blade severed the connection.

All of this was to buy time for Lampades to activate the Thunder Orb in the deepest part of Yellow Thunder where the Tower Master rested.

The thunder magic that had filled the area began to be converted by the Thunder Orb.

It couldn’t convert all the infinite magical power of the Ten Commandments into the Thunder Orb. However, it was powerful enough to interfere with the magic being used by the incapacitated Tower Master.

The survival program made an utterly cold assessment: it couldn’t repel the intruders. At minimum, it needed to ensure that the position of master of the Ten Commandments remained with the Yellow Thunder Tower.

The maximum power of lightning was charged, using the Tower Master’s entire nervous system as a conduit. A self-destructive spell using the body as a sacrifice. From within the lightning-wrapped body of the Tower Master, golden light began to flash.

Seeing the glowing Yellow Thunder Tower Master, Demos recalled a moment from the past.

‘This time is different!’

He was about to call upon the name of a god, preparing for a fatal strike borrowing the power of Enyalios.

But Hector preferred a ‘safer’ solution than a head-on clash of power.

“Junior! Convert it well!”

Battle qi was released from near his feet, propelling him in a leap close to flight. Then, delicate yet intense battle qi emissions occurred throughout his entire body. By controlling the angle and power of the battle qi release, he achieved perfect posture control in mid-air.

Thus, Hector’s flying blade pierced near the heart of the Yellow Thunder Tower Master—the convergence point of magical power.

The explosive thunder magic pouring out was a flood of lightning itself. But Lampades’ Thunder Orb accepted the flood of lightning and subdued the torrent.

When the magical power charged in the body was exhausted, the floating body of the Yellow Thunder Tower Master collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

In Hector’s attack, Lampades somehow saw a reflection of Ortes.

‘Damn, they’re similar…’

Hector clicked his tongue. Without Ortes’s “eyes,” breaking the structure of spell formulas to cancel magic was indeed limited.

He couldn’t reach Ortes’s level of skill in overwriting spell formulas.

“He should have succeeded me as the Sword Duke.”

Sword Duke was the title for the leader of the knights. Since the knights were originally founded by those who served an ancient king killed by the Magic King, they couldn’t call themselves kings, so they created this title based on the idea of calling themselves Grand Dukes, one rank below king.

Now that Ortes’s suspicions about the Magic King had been somewhat resolved, Hector wanted to pass his position to his only disciple and retire.

“Once this is over, the knights’ grand objective of revolutionizing magical society will be achieved, so maybe I should start preparing early?”

Deliberately ignoring the old man’s mutterings, Lampades looked around.

“I will begin the succession procedure.”

And the moment he placed his hand on the Ten Commandments—

***

“Yellow Thunder. What’s your situation?”

It was difficult to describe the voice as emotionless. It was more like an inanimate object—a voice devoid of any emotion. Lampades swallowed.

‘What’s going on? Did Ortes fail?’

“I’ll ask again. Yellow Thunder. Do you have the capacity to support Green Wood?”

Lampades took a deep breath. That couldn’t be right. Hadn’t he just proven that Ortes’s strategy worked against the Ten Towers? He didn’t know who this voice belonged to or why they were communicating this way, but it must be part of Ortes’s plan.

“The previous Yellow Thunder Tower was defeated in the succession battle. I am Lampades, who has newly succeeded Yellow Thunder.”

A moment of silence followed. Lampades waited for a response with a mixture of fear and impatience.

“Ah, that’s a relief. This is Carisia.”

The voice changed instantly, from a cold, almost painfully inorganic tone to one where human emotion could be felt.

“I’ll relay Ortes’s question. Did you transmit the message to Green Wood?”

Lampades responded calmly.

“Of course. Ortes was right to be wary of Arguirion¹. I see there was good reason.”

Receiving Lampades’ response through Carisia, Ortes breathed a sigh of relief. Lampades’ confirmation that he had received the Green Wood message meant he had successfully taken control of the Ten Commandments and activated the communication interference waves.

Except for the direct Ten Commandments communication that could penetrate Lampades’ interference, there was no possibility of Arguirion’s slander spreading further. The Tower Alliance dispatched to the Green Wood front was somewhat problematic, but at least Hydra Corporation wouldn’t be branded a public enemy right away.

“It’s unknown how Arguirion is here rather than in another dimension. But to quell the unrest among our allies, at minimum, either you, Chairman, or Ortes needs to be seen fighting Arguirion.”

Lampades continued his cool assessment of the situation. Hector and Demos had been dispatched to their respective fronts through Prodito immediately after the succession battle, and he and the Lampades Tower were currently stabilizing the Yellow Thunder front.

“Therefore, we cannot support the Green Wood front for at least several hours.”

“He says he’s grateful, actually. Please do your best to stabilize Yellow Thunder. Ortes plans to take action on the Green Wood front.”

Lampades found himself nodding in admiration. To create enough agitation and fabrication to force Ortes to personally intervene—

It was truly a level of disruption that even Ortes would fear. Equal to or greater than Ortes himself.

***

Arguirion advanced relentlessly. Thanks to the gift of converting magical power to mana, the succession battle on the Green Wood front took a very different form from typical succession battles.

Normally, the attacking side in a succession battle is at a disadvantage, as they must erode the magical power in the atmosphere controlled by the Ten Commandments and make it their own. However, Arguirion simply began converting magical power to mana on a massive scale.

While the Ten Commandments have no limits, individual magicians have limits to how much magical power they can accumulate and absorb. The conversion to mana happens faster than magicians can absorb power from the Ten Commandments. This miracle was achieved because virtually all of Arguirion’s forces were concentrated here, along with remaining research materials on Sprigo’s World Tree formulas.

Haltos sat atop a silver wave, watching the magicians being devoured. He had no intention of climbing the Green Wood Tower from the first floor.

He headed straight for the top.

Branches rushed in like a tsunami, engulfing the Green Wood Tower. It was the moment Haltos took a step toward the summit.

In an instant, dozens of spells converged on him. Magic being used easily despite the silver gift’s maximum conversion of magical power.

Even stranger was that the magical attributes weren’t unified. Rather than wood-attribute magic, all ten attributes of the Ten Towers manifested here.

“Who are you?”

“We knew you would come, servant of the Fallen Master.”

From the shadows of Green Wood rose magicians whose names had been forgotten. Even the Green Wood Tower Master was unaware of their arrival. Closer to magic than humans, they never participated in succession battles, endlessly researching magic instead.

They were known as “the ancient ones”² even among the elders. Among them were those who had remained as elders through several successions since the first Ten Towers era. Nominally treated as elders, they ignored even the Tower Master, machines of inquiry devoted solely to magic.

“I don’t know who you are, but you seem to know the truth. Yet you still side with the Ten Towers?”

“We exist for magic, not for some Corpse King.”