Carisia thought.
What was the best choice she could make right now, in this situation?
When Ortes had disappeared alone chasing after some suspicious individual, she should have followed. A sigh tinged with regret escaped her.
Was it a mistake to have stayed behind on the front lines against the psychic parasite to fill the void left by Ortes’ disappearance?
Having retracted her concealment spell, Carisia moved toward Kine.
“Uh… Chairman?”
Kine was startled by the sudden appearance of the chairman, while Cnemon watched them with an evidently troubled expression. Without further explanation, Carisia added,
“Everyone, fall back.”
“Why…?”
Kine’s question was reasonable. The wizards Carisia had gathered through political maneuvering were essentially all the wizards assembled in Algus City. Retreating with such force would be a foolish choice.
After all, even just Blasphemia and Carisia alone were forcing the psychic parasite into an unfavorable position. If everyone charged together, couldn’t they seize victory in one fell swoop?
Carisia shook her head calmly.
“You’ll get caught up in it.”
Cnemon was the first to understand the meaning behind that quiet declaration. Unlike Kine, who was pondering whether the psychic parasite was truly that strong, Cnemon knew of the ‘sufficient means’ to involve others—something akin to the foam of words.
“What do you intend to do?”
The steadiness in Cnemon’s voice came from his readiness. Whatever method this woman, Ortes’ superior, employed, it would undoubtedly surpass his imagination.
“Just a regular method. A byproduct of a field one inevitably studies when involved in large-scale construction.”
Leaving those words behind, Carisia once again cast her concealment spell. Cnemon persuaded Kine, who wondered if he should help, and retreated the wizards to the rear.
Niobe, commanding the battle against the Amimone Magic Tower variant, sensed something had changed. It wasn’t just that the variant’s rate of mutation was accelerating.
“Is there no firepower support?”
The large-scale attack magic Ortes had unleashed had ceased. It seemed the artifact’s stored magical power had been depleted.
This put Blasphemia at a disadvantage in a war of attrition. Niobe recalled Ortes’ response during the extradimensional storm that hit Algus City.
While reporting the situation to the main forces of Blasphemia, Niobe ensured her own escape from Algus City. Though Ortes was nowhere to be seen, he would surely say the same thing now.
“The Amimone Magic Tower is abandoned! Retreat the frontline! I’ll hold off the variant’s attacks and buy time; everyone retreat! Upon retreat, immediately inform the main force of the current situation and await further instructions!”
Other Panoptes agents engaged with cultists were also seen retreating. As a commander, Niobe felt she had done everything necessary.
Accepting d*ath calmly, Niobe maximized the internal magical energy of the mana stone implanted in her body through Blasphemia’s enhancement procedures. This would yield considerable explosive force.
She could inflict wounds severe enough to force the variant to focus on regeneration. Just as Niobe prepared for self-detonation,
The variant’s attack halted.
It hadn’t perished. Instead, it slowly distorted space, exhaling extradimensional magical power like breathing, gazing at something.
“Gaze” wasn’t metaphorical but literal. The warped spaces rearranged themselves into a shape resembling a massive face, its chaotic eyes fixed on a single point.
The direction where attacks had been launched moments ago.
Niobe could sense a tremendous magical pulse emanating from that location where the eyes were focused. The shockwave was so intense it nearly caused her to lose balance.
“Senior?”
Ortes must have successfully recharged the artifact.
Carisia freely unleashed her magical power. She dissolved all auxiliary spells, including optical concealments, and concentrated her magic onto a single point in the air. The partially manifested psychic parasite couldn’t ignore the immense magical power gathering there—a power clearly intended for a grand spell aimed directly at itself.
For Carisia herself, this was akin to gambling. Her magical power was far too vast for any single person to handle, and she herself had yet to transcend human limitations.
Thus, instead of channeling the amassed magic into specific incantations, she merely condensed it. If mishandled, there was a risk of vaporizing not only herself but also the vicinity of the Amimone Magic Tower.
The parasite would likely have ignored her if it realized she was merely amassing magic without proceeding to form an incantation.
Fortunately, however, the parasite lacked such discernment. Or perhaps her deceptive techniques honed through constant encounters with Ortes were proving effective.
“You…”
The parasite struggled to categorize Carisia. Initially deemed the perfect sacrifice, it momentarily considered her a new creation of the Creator influenced by Ortes’ tricks.
Now that Ortes’ deceptions had been exposed, the parasite had no particular thoughts about Carisia.
However, facing her one-on-one now, the parasite was filled with doubts. The endless power of the Creator surged within her physical form.
Ortes’ words couldn’t possibly be true. The Creator must be observing them silently from the distant heavens, aloof from their earthly squabbles.
‘But this…’
Could anything other than the Creator’s power explain it? Confused, the parasite opted for the most efficient defense: offense.
Since the enemy was preparing a grand spell, it instinctively calculated to counter with equal or greater firepower.
Carisia had spent quite a long time with someone whose inner thoughts were notoriously difficult to fathom. His half-closed eyes made it impossible to guess his thoughts, and his respectful speech betrayed no emotions.
Yet, Carisia could now easily read even such a person’s mind. The confusion of the psychic parasite was a rather straightforward emotion.
Currently, all the parasite’s resources were devoted to constructing a new spell to overwhelm Carisia’s magic. Analyzing the parasite’s incantations, Carisia smiled.
She had won.
I felt an untimely foreboding. Not the usual eerie sensation, but the kind that suggested my life might end if I didn’t recognize it immediately.
But I had no time to deliberate on the unexpected unease because silver spiderwebs were already chasing me from behind.
Suddenly,
My ‘eye’ convulsed with a warning. The world turned red with letters. I felt more bewilderment than fear due to the content written in those red letters.
Detonation in 10 seconds.
“Carisia!”
Instinctively, I blurted out the culprit’s name. What exactly have you done?!
Since arriving in Algus City, Carisia had been consistently causing destruction. It was destruction she anticipated would draw the attention of Panoptes. This occurred concurrently with her search for Argeyirion.
Even though she failed to find Argeyirion until the final day of the tower master selection battle, the destruction continued. The reason was simple.
To plant explosives.
As Caike and the other board members focused on creating the Artificial Tenth Rank, relics devoid of divine power became abundant. These remnants, which Ortes might have sold as antiques and Bertrand, the mining supervisor, wanted preserved for historical significance, caught Carisia’s interest.
Shouldn’t we test the prototype before using the Artificial Tenth Rank as a bomb?
Thus, she began crafting magical bombs using these relics, which retained the function of storing abilities despite being drained of divine power.
Initially, there was no plan to plant such bombs in Algus City. She only intended to throw them through portals if Argeyirion attempted to escape via dimensional magic during the battle.
Carisia decided to switch plans and start planting explosives after hearing about the psychic parasite targeting the magic core of the Amimone Magic Tower. This would serve as her trump card in case the parasite ever seized control of the tower.
Coincidentally, the timing was perfect. As soon as the tower master selection battle began, Carisia attacked the other candidates, prompting rival factions to join the hunt. The escalation of competition was unexpected but advantageous for Carisia.
Because Panoptes lacked the manpower to patrol the expanding battlefield. Thanks to Panoptes’ tacit approval—”Anyway, we’ll judge whoever survives, so it’s fine!”—Carisia managed to install explosives in appropriate locations.
The detonation mechanism required transmitting light waves in a specific pattern. The sophisticated optical sensors capable of detecting wavelengths above infrared were a joint creation of Bertrand the dwarf and Lampades.
Carisia fired off the light waves needed to simultaneously detonate the relic-encased magical bombs she had planted excessively beneath the Amimone Magic Tower. This happened while the parasite was preoccupied with sensing the magic Carisia was releasing.
And then there was light.
