Ch.64Grave Robbing and Theft (7)

I looked at the scroll fragments in my hand.

‘Can I really solve this with these….’

A scroll of forced contract and a scroll of spirit binding. Plus other miscellaneous scrolls containing curses and curtains of lightning rods.

It was clear that the Torres Magic Tower had put considerable effort into capturing the lightning giant.

They just hadn’t gotten to use their carefully prepared tools before fleeing.

They must not have had the capacity to gather scrolls while escaping, as many scrolls had been abandoned in the final room of the deep level.

Most were charred by lightning, leaving little of their original form intact.

I had managed to bring these by wrapping the smaller fragments in the largest scroll.

Looking at the silver worm and the lightning giant creating destruction like something out of a monster movie, I tried to imagine how the excavation of this ruin would have proceeded in the original story, if I hadn’t come.

‘The excavation definitely succeeded in the original timeline.’

The protagonist of the original story was the Demon King, and companions increased with each Ten Covenant episode, so Astrape wasn’t given particularly significant attention.

But during the few chapters involving Torres Magic Tower, it was different. She clearly played the role of the main heroine.

Torres Magic Tower appeared as a mid-tier tower with considerable power and posed a threatening presence as Astrape’s—and by extension, the chapter’s—main antagonist. If they had experienced such a catastrophic failure during excavation, they wouldn’t have had the capacity for that.

‘It’s 2074 now. Even with three years until the Demon King’s revival in 2077, that’s too short to recover from this kind of disaster.’

If things had proceeded according to the original story, the silver worm wouldn’t have existed, but even without it, I doubted Torres Magic Tower’s excavation team could have stopped a rampaging lightning giant.

Circumstances suggested they had successfully excavated the giant intact.

‘Without me, the development of this ruin would have been slower by weeks or perhaps months. With stable development, they would have entered the deep level without awakening the giant….’

And used scrolls to force a contract?

Something’s still missing. I turned my gaze toward the giant.

The writhing silver worm had spread across the giant’s entire body, transforming into something resembling human bones. If the giant were compared to a building, the worm had become a kind of skeletal framework.

It was like an anatomical diagram with shimmering silver bones, flesh made of dark clouds, and blood vessels filled with lightning.

Truly close to a monstrous life form straight out of mythology.

‘From a purely combat perspective, the giant would be much stronger separated from the silver worm, but this current form is far more imposing… wait?’

The silver worm was continuously absorbing magical power from the giant. The giant, whose body consisted of lightning-attribute magical power, should have been gradually approaching annihilation.

Yet the giant’s body remained neither expanding nor contracting. The silver worm was growing slightly larger, but the rate at which its volume increased was clearly diminishing.

‘The giant is reabsorbing mana from inside the silver worm.’

As the silver worm’s volume increased, its contact area with the giant grew, causing it to lose more mana. Consequently, the net absorption decreased, slowing the rate of proliferation. Before long, the absorption rates would balance out, and the silver worm’s growth would stop.

I could somewhat understand how the silver worm absorbed magical power and stored it as mana without loss. It would be foolish to try understanding an extra-dimensional product by this world’s standards.

However, it was difficult to comprehend how the giant could absorb mana, convert it back to magical power, and store it without any loss.

The process of converting mana to magical power and then reabsorbing that converted power should normally involve losses at both stages.

‘Isn’t reducing absorption loss to zero the effect of the Lightning Talisman?’

But I hadn’t sensed the presence of any artifact in the final room of the deep level.

I gazed at the giant. Soon, when the silver threads took root in the giant’s extremities, their mutual absorption would become perfectly equal, and movement would temporarily cease.

It was like two fists pressed against each other. Pushing against each other with exactly the same force from opposite directions, neither could move.

The moment one side gained the upper hand, that precarious equilibrium would collapse, and the victor would devour the loser.

To subdue such a super-evolved monster would be beyond Torres Magic Tower alone—it would require multiple Justice Towers or one of the Ten Towers to step in.

I rejected the option of leaving the monster loose to increase the Ten Towers’ concerns. What if the Ten Towers judged that Arguirion had the ability to intentionally create such monstrosities?

The unified power of all Ten Towers would crush Arguirion. If the perception of Arguirion shifted from “a larger and more capable group of Corrosives than expected” to a serious threat, the three-way balance of power would collapse into catastrophe.

To prevent catastrophe, to discover the true nature of the lightning giant and clean up this mess, there was only one way…

‘Here goes nothing!’

I had to open my eyes.

***

By now, Crete Island had become virtually the center of a storm. The blackened sky poured down torrential rain and unleashed a barrage of lightning.

As the silver worm burrowed under the cloud-like skin, the giant’s movements ceased. But the unending storm and ominous silence proved that neither entity had been neutralized.

The magicians finally feared how powerful the victor would emerge after this battle ended. The brief silence was fortunate only in that it allowed them to tend to their wounds and recast defensive spells.

Lugret, the magician from Arguirion, couldn’t consider this fortunate.

A silhouette appeared beyond the cloud-covered ridge. The blurry shadow didn’t approach the magicians.

It wasn’t Karuto who had left.

At some point, two distinct blue beams of light rose from the silhouette. From where eyes would be on a person.

And at that exact moment, the giant’s movement stopped.

Lugret recalled the smiling man who had controlled the silver worm and attacked them. Strangely, he couldn’t remember any specific features besides the smile.

Yet he was certain that the figure emitting blue light from its eyes, preparing some kind of magic, was him.

‘Is he trying to absorb the giant using the silver worm?’

The reason he appeared here must be to strengthen his control magic by being closer to the silver worm. Karuto, who had gone to stop him, had probably perished.

Lugret predicted what would happen if the silver worm successfully absorbed the giant according to that man’s intentions. Would he be able to control the silver worm after it absorbed the giant’s power?

‘Even if Blasphemia succeeded in replicating the control magic, they probably haven’t fully mastered it yet. That’s why he could only input simple destruction commands rather than detailed instructions to the silver worm.’

If so, there was still hope. Since he wouldn’t easily control the overpowered silver worm, they could seize that moment…!

But the silhouette took actions very different from Lugret’s expectations. The blue light quickly extinguished. Then came rapid acceleration. Lugret’s motion vision couldn’t track the silhouette’s dash.

When those lights reappeared, it was in the middle of the open space.

Inside the giant’s body. Two streams of blue light blazed within the dark clouds where silver threads and lightning devoured each other.

***

‘Here goes nothing!’

I sighed again and charged toward the complex of lightning giant and silver worm.

I recalled his information.

Lightning Master Keraunos. The last Tower Master of Manubia Magic Tower.

Manubia Magic Tower was a powerful school that defeated the first Thunder Emperor Tower and rose to become the second Thunder Emperor Tower.

However, it wasn’t a uniquely powerful entity capable of facing the Ten Towers alone. To fight the succession battle, Manubia Magic Tower promised to share the wisdom of the Ten Covenants with several magic towers, and successfully brought down the first Thunder Emperor Tower.

They succeeded.

Before fully aligning with the Ten Covenants, the Tower Master of Manubia died within ten days. Assassination by the betrayal of allies.

Due to internal strife after their ten-day reign, the third Thunder Emperor Tower remained undetermined for a long time, but eventually the original first Thunder Emperor Tower returned with renewed determination and reclaimed its name by defeating other competitors.

The source of that absurd mana absorption ability was the Ten Covenants. One of the Demon King’s wisdoms that Manubia Magic Tower received from the Ten Covenants during their ten-day reign.

It was a strange coincidence that the wisdom from the Ten Covenants had effects similar in nature but different in direction from extra-dimensional products.

Manubia Magic Tower spent a long time plotting revenge against the betrayers. Keraunos, the last Tower Master of Manubia, believed it impossible for humans to use that secret technique, so he attempted to become a spirit to exact revenge on the betrayers…

But failed.

Completely.

The reason was unknown. My brain was already on the verge of overload, making further analysis of the lightning master impossible. It was challenging enough to prevent my brain from overloading with information flowing in from the silver worm and other magicians.

‘As a side effect of the failed spiritualization, the lightning master’s sense of self gradually diluted. My arrival only accelerated the excavation; given more time, his self-awareness would have completely evaporated, leaving only the mana-absorbing function.’

The rest could be easily deduced. Originally, Torres Magic Tower would have used the contract scroll to bind the remaining body of the lightning master and use it as a magical power conversion device.

That was the true identity of the Lightning Talisman. A talisman made by compressing the body of a great magician who had transformed into a spirit.

Like those funeral services that create gemstones from cremated remains. Exactly like that, though Torres Magic Tower’s purpose was exploitation rather than commemoration.

‘Damn it. The original story described it as found in an ancient ruin from the Demon King era, so I thought it was excavated as a complete artifact.’

In other words, the current lightning master was raw material. Man-eating raw material, but still!

I shouldn’t take the original story’s descriptions at face value unless every detail is perfectly described. Like the priest’s lingering thoughts in Phoibos’s sacred object, many aspects seem to have been downplayed compared to reality.

‘If the original Torres Magic Tower compressed a spirit’s body into a tool through a contract, something similar should be possible now.’

I took another deep breath. I needed to connect those fragmented scrolls in sequence and link them to the lightning master.

The silver worm was a bonus. Since it was also a summoned entity from another dimension, the forced contract spell should work on it too…

Fortunately, both entities had almost no remaining intelligence. Let’s begin.

***

I open my eyes. Ortes’s eyes could perceive formless information, the essential nature inscribed in objects.

Inside the lightning master’s body, residual magical power was swirling due to the bidirectional absorption of magical power and mana. A fragment of a scroll is placed on one strand of the flow, which resembled a spider web twisted in dozens of layers.

The scroll activates upon receiving magical power. With only fragments of the spell formula remaining, it would normally just absorb some magical power before disappearing. But Ortes continuously connected the scroll fragments.

It was like a mosaic using the lightning master’s magical power and the silver worm’s mana as adhesive. He patched together the spell formulas remaining in the scrolls to create another distinct flow.

Though ragged in appearance, the spell formula takes shape. The formula spanning between the lightning master’s thunder veins and the silver worm’s silver bones began binding both entities.

Crack. The lightning master’s right arm folds. The bone made of silver threads does the same.

Then the left leg, then other limbs. They converge as if a piece of paper being crumpled.

The lightning master, who had transformed himself into a spirit through the secret technique of spiritualization, had his very existence altered into something like a spell formula.

By overlaying forced contract and binding spell formulas onto such a lightning master, the contract formula was amplified to the extent of the lightning master’s presence.

A binding so overwhelming that even the connected silver worm couldn’t escape.

The storm raging with the lightning master’s power and the dark clouds hanging in the sky all converge to one place. Into Ortes’s grasp.

Where the storm had retreated, Ortes stood holding a golden orb inlaid with silver threads.