Ch.191The Pope’s Gambit (2)

“Ortes──!!”

A howl erupting from Haltos’s soul. The fury and sorrow contained in his blood-boiling cry shook the summit of Greenwood.

Nastion understood it as “Ah, he’s enraged at facing his enemy,” while the Tower Master of Greenwood thought, “What’s Ortes? Some kind of magical activation word?”

At this moment, when even Carisia and the Ancient Elders couldn’t grasp Haltos’s intense emotions.

Only Ortes sensed that there was something more complex entangled in Haltos’s outcry. Arguirion had clearly been an adversary who threatened Hydra Sa with bold disruptions. Haltos, who would have led such disruptions, wouldn’t lose his self-control to this extent merely out of anger toward Ortes himself.

‘Is this a trap?’

A decoy operation—deliberately displaying rage to the point of losing reason to lure Ortes in. At first glance, this seemed the most rational hypothesis.

But it couldn’t be. Ortes had never seen situations surrounding him unfold in rational ways.

‘It seems related to that relic-covered magician who just appeared…’

Haltos’s gaze was busily moving between Ortes and the magician with the sacred relics. At times like this, Ortes often felt a subtle satisfaction about his narrow eyes.

Narrow eyes make it difficult to read one’s gaze. While those who normally keep their eyes wide open handle their gaze awkwardly before launching a surprise attack, those with narrow eyes can simply look wherever they want with confidence.

Since no one can tell where they’re looking anyway.

Ortes decided to trust his intuition and analysis. He opened his mouth.

“Haltos. What do you think of the alliance I’ve formed?”

“Since when…! Just since when have you been doing such things!”

Damn. This was an unexpected question. Ortes naturally countered to buy time.

“Haha. Since when, you ask.”

Words extracted from Haltos’s sentence. Adding a meaningful laugh to set the mood. And the final choice to avoid revealing his ignorance.

“Wouldn’t it be better to hear that directly from him?”

Changing the subject of the question.

Haltos turned his head blankly toward the Commander. He recalled the days they had fought together before he pledged loyalty to the cause—to contribute to the order of magical society.

To turn the Commander, who had devoted his life to eradicating the priests of the Old Gods, into a puppet of divinity and display him before himself.

The word “insult” was insufficient. This was blasphemy. Even though Haltos no longer pledged loyalty to the Ten Towers, the cause of peace for the entire magical society remained in his heart even after becoming Arguirion.

Wasn’t that why he had consistently tried to recruit Blasphemia agents into Arguirion? Not to become slaves of the Ten Towers leading a false peace, but to cultivate true peace together under the cause.

But now, the Commander wasn’t even a minion of the Ten Towers.

An enemy of Blasphemia and an enemy of Arguirion. Wrapped in the ritual tools of the priests of the Old Gods, the source of chaos in magical society, showing devotion to superstition.

The Commander of Blasphemia was, as far as Haltos knew, the most suitable person to serve the cause. To desecrate such a pure heart like this!

Haltos opened a dimensional gate. Short-range spatial movement to attack Ortes.

And this was the final piece of collapse.

The space at Greenwood’s summit had already reached its limit.

The shadow passage Nastion had connected to summon the Eidolon. The extra-dimensional erosion path deployed by Haltos and Arguirion. The Eleusis that Greenwood had opened as a reinforcement path of white light.

And the spatial movement made of divine power from the Divine Order. In a state where spatial distortions were layered upon each other, the extremely small-scale dimensional gate that Haltos activated in anger finally broke the balance.

Space tore apart. Like a vacuum craving air, the spatial void pulled in everything around it to fill itself.

Extra-dimensional forces, magical power, and divine power intertwined to fill the spatial gaps.

As space was shaken, Carisia reached out and grabbed Ortes’s hand. Ortes did the same.

When the vibrations crushing and mixing space subsided, Carisia looked to the side.

“I didn’t expect this…”

The familiar figure of Ortes uttering unfamiliar sounds. Carisia turned her eyes from Ortes to look at Greenwood’s summit.

The newly formed summit of Greenwood was no longer a tower rooftop but spread out so vastly it should be called a plaza.

Arguirion’s silver trees served as outer walls, with black stone slabs from Pluto’s temple covering the ground. At the center of the plaza was a massive crystal, Greenwood, surrounded by green magical light.

It was in the form of an arena centered around the Tenth Realm.

Those who recovered from the shock of spatial vibration flashed their eyes at each other and toward the Tenth Realm.

One proposition flashed through everyone’s mind.

‘Whoever connects to the Tenth Realm first wins!’

The Tower Master of Greenwood rushed forward first. He realized that his access rights to the Tenth Realm had been greatly weakened.

It was due to the process of spatial reconstruction. As the magic of the Tenth Realm mixed with extra-dimensional forces and divinity, the control authority that should have belonged solely to the Tower Master was weakened by mixing with other attributes of power.

He needed to reconnect to Greenwood to regain his authority.

Following the Tower Master of Greenwood as if escorting him were the Ancient Elders. The newly formed space was constructed using all surrounding powers as material.

The Ancient Elders, each being ultra-high-density magical power and constituting a realm, were optimal materials for restoring space. The law of the world ruthlessly invaded their physical bodies.

In fact, one reason the Greenwood Tower Master lost authority was the effect of the independence constituting the Ancient Elders’ bodies spreading throughout the space. As the powers of each Ancient Elder, deviating from the existing magical system, dissolved into space, they interfered with the magical phenomenon of connection between the Tower Master and the Tenth Realm.

The Elders could intuitively understand this fact. Even if they lost all their physical bodies, it wouldn’t mean the Elders’ eternal rest, but it would take considerable time to restore the lost formulas.

At least on the scale of years.

Before their bodies, which were still continuously collapsing, completely dispersed, the best choice for the magical society was Greenwood’s victory.

Those blocking their path to the Tenth Realm were Arguirion and the Eidolon.

Haltos realized he couldn’t open a dimensional gate. It wasn’t a problem with the granted power. It was just that since extra-dimensional space was already included in this space, even if he opened a dimensional gate, it would be fragmented into pieces, limited to local-scale gates too small to use.

It was the same even when amplified through the Eidolon’s observation magic. Unless this bizarrely twisted space was resolved, the use of spatial magic seemed impossible within it.

If there was any consolation, it was that this penalty would be fair to everyone present here. It would even repel the saints of the superstition followers.

The purification of magical power created by the order of the Ten Towers collided with the chaos of extra-dimensional space. Powers that consumed each other began to dance.

The Commander intervened between them.

His movement was invisible. A method that could only be thought of as spatial movement.

“How—”

An Arguirion agent who tried to express doubt had his neck severed in an instant. It was the result of a scythe that the Commander was somehow holding.

Haltos loaded his magic with a grievous heart. The moment he aimed at the Commander, the Commander disappeared from Haltos’s sight.

And what appeared was behind Haltos. Without Nastion, who could use the shadows of all Arguirion members as sensory organs, even Haltos would have nearly fallen victim to the surprise attack.

As the scythe was blocked, the armor wrapping the Commander began to transform. It was in the form of a trident. When the Commander struck the spear tip to the ground, water began to gush from it.

Then the trident changed its form once more. A combination of straight lines bent in various directions. It was a shape symbolizing lightning.

When the Commander threw the lightning-shaped weapon, it turned into burning lightning branches and swept the surroundings. It was divine punishment burning both Arguirion and the Ten Towers without discrimination.

Once again, the Commander concealed his appearance. Nastion, who was carefully exploring the vortex of sacred relics, reported his inference to Haltos.

“Don’t waver! The enemy is not using spatial movement magic or dimensional gates because his realm is superior to ours or closer to the cause! It’s merely an illusion through the art of invisibility!”

Haltos tried to correct Arguirion’s confusion with a concise shout. At least, he tried to correct it.

***

Carisia and I were not getting involved in that chaos. We were just hiding with an optical camouflage spell that Carisia quickly chanted.

Normally, such a disguise would be instantly detected in a battle between such powerful magicians, but with the confusion of the three-way battle between the Ten Towers, Arguirion, and that unknown entity, no one had time to pay attention to us.

“Do you know what it is?”

I shook my head.

“Ah. My eyes still—”

“Your eyes have recovered.”

When I witnessed the first “movement” demonstrated by someone Haltos was overreacting to, the world began to textualize again as if a broken circuit had reconnected.

I had a similar experience in Kaicle’s hideout. When the fragment of Typhoeus met my eyes and activated.

If at that time I activated the fragment of Typhoeus, this time it was the opposite—the “movement” activated my eyes.

‘My eyes’ unnamed divinity reacted when it contacted Typhoeus’s death throes. Then does that mean the movement just now was also a manifestation of some divinity?’