Chapter 721: Breaking and Entering (14)
A majestic sea of flames surged and swelled.
At the heart of the fiery waves stood a ragged corpse.
But the will-thought that had descended upon this already dead body now filled the entire space, blazing fiercely.
This was the 8th Tower Lord of Blaiver Magic Tower.
Tatiana’s master, the Strategist of the Central Front. The Administrator of the First Gate.
An Arch-wizard who had transcended Hierarchy through pyromantic magic, reaching the pinnacle of power.
A monster who had become the very sun of the Magic Tower, illuminating the front lines as a flame, now manifested here, defying common sense and laws.
“It seems I’ve only just heard that the work entrusted to our partners has devolved into catastrophe.”
The Tower Lord chuckled.
“It’s late, but a pretense of tidying up is surely necessary, wouldn’t you agree? Fortunately, with the help of this child, Duren, I’ve managed to save face.”
“……!!!”
How could the already deceased Duren possibly help the Tower Lord? The method was as clear as the fire blazing in this very place.
The principle of Jak-hon, which Duren himself had used to burn lower-ranking wizards.
The Tower Lord was directly burning the spirit of a Flame Pillar, using that power to manifest his will here.
Tatiana gritted her teeth.
“How could you even burn the spirit and body of a disciple who followed you……!!”
“Come to think of it, I’ve been the Tower Lord for quite some time, despite my own shortcomings.”
Rumble…!!
The Tower Lord spoke as he descended onto the ground below the sea of flames.
“As my insights broadened, I found I could do things like this.”
“…….”
“Though your master is no god, and never wished to be one……”
The Tower Lord whispered, slowly approaching, using Duren’s corpse with its eyes rolled back as his messenger.
“I’ve become capable of playing tricks with the laws of magic, enough to pull off a plausible imitation.”
The answer of the Tower Lord, manifested by sacrificing the soul of a 7th-level Saint Wizard.
Lennok’s eyes sank deep, fully grasping its meaning.
“A divine incarnation and a fire god, indeed……”
A being who manifests by using the spirit and body of his own disciple as kindling.
While this method was closer to a single-use consumable rather than a true divine incarnation or an Apostle’s manifestation,
Precisely because of that, burning Duren’s spirit alone was enough to bring the Tower Lord to this place.
The ruthlessness of burning and discarding a 7th-level Saint Wizard for just a single manifestation.
Contrary to his calm and gentle voice, the rumor that the Tower Lord’s nature was cruel and meticulous was no exaggeration.
However, sensing something in Lennok’s monologue, the Tower Lord immediately turned his gaze to him.
“Oh, you understand my essence. You truly aren’t an ordinary wizard.”
Beyond the stiff, dead corpse, the Tower Lord seemed to smile faintly.
“Well, I suppose that’s why Tatiana asked you to undo the shackles of her mind instead.”
“…….”
He already knew that Tatiana’s Geas had been broken.
Perhaps that very fact was the decisive reason for the Tower Lord’s appearance here.
Whoosh…!!
The air superheated. Tatiana’s posture, taut with resolve.
Lennok and the Tower Lord, though showing no outward signs, understood.
The very fact that the Tower Lord appeared belatedly, at this point when everything was over, meant this was no ordinary cleanup.
“You were always a bright and delicate child.”
The Tower Lord said, looking at Tatiana.
“From the moment I first took you as my disciple and brought you into the tower, I never once doubted your talent or your character.”
“…….”
“I thought you were the only Flame Pillar capable of finding the right path, so I entrusted you with the tower’s crucial affairs, but I never imagined you would break my heart in this way.”
“But Master, you personally bound your beloved disciples with Geas,” Tatiana retorted, gritting her teeth.
“Looking back, it was always the same. Someone dedicated to the operation always had to be sacrificed. We were only given tasks that couldn’t be accomplished otherwise.”
“…….”
“We believed without a doubt that it was for the tower. Our comrades who died believed the same.”
As she spoke, her emotions seemed to overwhelm her, and Tatiana’s magic surged and began to blaze violently.
“Even until their dying breath, they believed it and left. No, even after death!!!”
Crash!
The conflagration unleashed by Tatiana pushed back the Tower Lord’s crimson flames.
An impossibly poignant and powerful will-thought, wielded from a body utterly drained of stamina and magic.
Tatiana’s voice trembled as she spoke.
“I didn’t love the Magic Tower; I loved the moments when I believed we were together. Those times that will never return……”
“That’s right.”
The Tower Lord nodded gently.
An undeniable hint of laughter mingled with his pleasant voice.
“That’s why, when you said you would leave the tower, I knew the lingering attachment that bound you had faded. So I cast you into the Well of the Codex, hoping you might become a handful of meaning.”
It was an answer so cruel it was unbelievable, delivered in such a gentle tone.
“Perhaps everything went wrong the moment you returned alive from there. My oversight.”
“…….”
“I should have realized that, having entrusted you with so much, the impact would be great when you turned your back on the tower.”
He lifted Duren’s broken and twisted arms, holding them together.
An awkward gesture, as if the ruined hands were brought together in a prayer-like pose.
But Lennok realized that this was a motion to form a minimal hand seal.
“So now, I suppose I must personally gather it back.”
Combustion Ritual Magic. Property Transformation. Transcendental Manifestation.
Taiji Incarnation!
OOOOOH!!!
The sea of flames engulfing the theme park ruins spun according to the Tower Lord’s will, drawing a massive circle.
At the center of the circle, his will split into two, transforming into distinct forms of fire.
One was a pure white flame, shimmering eerily like plasma, while the other was a deep, dark flame, sinking sluggishly.
Flames blazing with different luminosities surged like majestic waves of fire.
And the white and dark flames, containing two distinct will-thoughts, met precisely where Lennok and Tatiana stood.
KWOAHHHH!!!!
Their entire vision split in half, igniting in different directions.
An illusion of the horizon tilting.
“Taiji Incarnation……!!”
Tatiana stiffened, gazing at the sky with a voice filled with horror.
“Van, we have to run right now. This is the salvation magic my master obtained!!!”
“……Salvation magic?”
“You’re not usually so slow to judge, Tatiana.”
Even amidst this, the Tower Lord gently coaxed Tatiana with a soft voice.
“If you were your old self, you would have immediately realized that my personal appearance here was meant to make this entire incident as if it never happened.”
“That’s impossible. No matter how strong Jak-hon’s power is……!!”
Even as she urged escape, Tatiana couldn’t move a single step. It wasn’t that her legs wouldn’t move, but rather that she seemed unable to gauge where to flee.
Lennok also surveyed the surrounding landscape and the movement of magic, instantly grasping the reason.
A sea of flames surging on all sides, except for this floating island.
The waves of fire, flawlessly encircling them, were not the power of ordinary pyromantic magic.
‘Fast and irreversible. Not a principle that would generally apply in this world.’
A contradictory incantation that forcefully amplified the central firepower by dividing and clashing the concept of combustion into two.
This was an explosive yet savage form of combustion, completely different from the pyromantic magic Lennok knew.
Even the way the concept of combustion diverged and spun differently after the incantation was complete.
But Lennok didn’t stop there; he also discerned that the cost of the magic the Tower Lord had incanted didn’t precisely match the output.
‘The correlation between mana consumption, range, and firepower is excessively high. Even considering the amplification of will-thought, it’s unrealistic.’
The Tower Lord was burning Duren’s spirit with Jak-hon, manifesting here as a divine incarnation and a fire god.
Using the soul of a 7th-level Saint Wizard, his own disciple, as kindling, the power derived from such depravity and taboo would be immense.
Yet, the power of the Taiji Incarnation unleashed here was so incredible that it would be hard to believe even if the Tower Lord had incanted it himself.
That incomprehensible discrepancy, and Tatiana’s mention of “salvation magic,” offered a clue to the situation.
“…….”
A cumbersome combustion method for something designed to burn enemies.
Overwhelming firepower, unbelievable for a magic incanted through a proxy manifestation.
Even the waves of fire, engulfing the entire area and surging, danced around Lennok and Tatiana.
“It wasn’t just pyromantic magic after all. Salvation magic, you say……”
Lennok sneered, realizing the true nature of the déjà vu he felt from all directions.
“Do you elevate ritual magic that forcibly sacrifices others with such a noble term?”
“……”
Massive flames, forming the shape of a Taiji, rose around Lennok and Tatiana.
Lennok had experienced that eerie sense of unity before, as the flames surged like dancers, looking down upon the two.
The Guido Cult’s Far Eastern Branch. The grand offering ritual where High Priestess Isel Naydree attempted to summon Outer Gods and become a new Apostle.
The sense of unity he had felt during the ritual, where a prophet worshipped with all their might, now felt as if it was forcibly designating Lennok.
What the Blaiver Magic Tower Lord used here was not the Magic Tower’s pyromantic magic.
It was one of the profound principles of forced ritual magic, passed down from a completely different world.
Lennok murmured, looking at the towering flames that encircled them.
Rumble!!!
“So, it draws power by presuming the ritual will succeed, and if it fails, it bears the backlash instead…… No wonder the output is so abnormally strong.”
“Hee hee, you recognize the true worth of a great ritual magic just by glancing at it?”
The Tower Lord chuckled in a low voice, moving Duren’s corpse to nod his head.
“No matter how outstanding the talent, it’s not easy to possess intuition that transcends ignorance……”
As he spoke, Duren’s entire body gradually turned to ash, scattering and disappearing.
His mind and body were burning away, unable to withstand the power of the ritual magic wielded by the Tower Lord.
“Tatiana entrusted her brilliance to you. In that case, I have no choice but to take that as well.”
KWOOOHHH!!
Ritual magic that forcibly proceeds by sacrificing a target, regardless of their will.
The moment the sacrifice is complete, the ritual’s power, once drawn, aligns, and the backlash disappears.
The incantation of Taiji Incarnation used the process of completion itself as a weapon, rather than simply killing the sacrifice through completion of the ritual.
But what was the outcome revealed through such a completed ritual?
Lennok believed the answer lay in the memories he had seen and heard since obtaining the Phoenix Hall.
“Ritual magic from another world. Flames from a magic system different from the existing one. I roughly understand what’s going on with the Blaiver Magic Tower.”
As Lennok spoke, reaching out his hand, the firebird that had settled on the engine’s junction spread its wings.
[Suitable Successor’s Call Confirmed.]
Flutter!!
The moment the Phoenix Hall’s will-thought settled on Lennok’s fingertips and trembled, the Tower Lord’s will-thought, recognizing it, shook violently.
“Wait, that’s—”
“If you see this right before your eyes and still can’t properly grasp its meaning……”
Lennok murmured, slowly caressing the Phoenix Hall and drawing up his mana.
“It must mean that you, too, did not legitimately inherit the Tower Lord’s authority.”
Ritual magic from a different magic system than the Blaiver Magic Tower.
The Tower Lord wielding a magic system not of the tower, and the circumstance of him not being able to read the history of the Phoenix Hall, which had transferred its authority to Lennok.
Why was the ninth authority to succeed the Tower being passed to Lennok, even though a Tower Lord already existed?
Delving into the fundamental causality could explain the current situation.
Was it not because the Tower Lord’s authority itself was not legitimately passed down, or had been revoked for some reason?
And the ritual magic he was currently using likely played a large part in the weakening of the 8th Tower Lord’s authority.
“If your authority was twisted as a price for wielding different magic, shouldn’t you personally bear that cost?”
The presence of the Phoenix Hall. Its form rested docilely on Lennok’s hand, without any rejection.
Did the Tower Lord sense something from Lennok’s utterly unperturbed face?
“……Impossible.”
As if the intuition of a strategist who had long maintained his position of power was telling him the truth, the Tower Lord’s voice grew sharply cold.
“Has that woman’s will-thought recognized you as the rightful successor!!”
Rumble!!!
The flames of the Taiji Incarnation instantly engulfed Lennok, his body soaring high into the sky.
The culmination of the ritual, working to offer Lennok as a sacrifice, altar and all.
As if forgetting Tatiana’s very existence, all attention immediately focused on Lennok, holding him in check.
Black and crimson flames endlessly clashed and exploded, raging to burn and offer Lennok’s body.
But Lennok ignored the storm of fire raging around him, merely bowing his head slightly.
“It didn’t recognize me.”
KIIING!!
Lennok poured all his remaining mana into the flames of the Phoenix Hall that rested on his hand.
“I am permitting it.”
“……!!!”
What mattered was not the quantity of mana, but the very will to permit the authority of the Phoenix Hall, which had been burning with longing.
Immediately after Lennok formally approved and accepted the Tower Lord’s succession authority, which he had deferred until now.
The form of the firebird perched on his hand began to swell explosively, growing larger.
[Aptitude Factor Holder Approved.]
[Pyromantic Unique Magic Pinnacle User Confirmed.]
[Succession process beginning.]
At the ends of the two streams of fire that engulfed the Tower Lord, a new ember spread its wings and surged forward.
The firebird, dozens of times larger than Lennok’s body in an instant, donned crimson phoenix feathers and embraced the successor’s body.
At that moment, thick wings of flame covered Lennok’s eyes, protecting him at the heart of the blazing ritual magic.
[Solar System accessed.]
KWOOSHAAAAH!!!
Even the flames unleashed by the Tower Lord engulfed Lennok and surged upwards, transforming into a passage for the ritual’s ascension.
An illusion arose as if different forms of the sun were looking down upon this place.
The moment Lennok stepped directly into that ritual world beyond, without hesitation.
[Entering the Altar of the Sun.]
A grand hall of flames opened wide before his eyes.