The chaos that occurred in Algoth City provided enough leeway for the Divine Cult to hide its presence.
With one Apex Tower perfectly toppled, a power struggle to devour its carcass is currently ongoing. The internal situation of the magical society doesn’t bode well for organizing an extensive tracking party.
Right now, the tracking team searching for traces of the Divine Cult is only moving within Algoth City, making it a distant dream for the cult’s main force to be captured by the Ten Towers.
The priest of the War Goddess, Glaucus, analyzed that the reason for engaging in a decisive battle in Algoth City was also part of the Ten Towers’ strategy to simplify the search for suspects.
Even though the attempt to engulf Amimone Tower has failed, Argyrion will not easily retreat. It’s also an opportunity to erase traces and, when necessary, legally acquire the remains of the Apex Tower.
In this way, the calculation is that by pursuing those lurking behind the candidates, they can catch Argyrion and the cult’s traitors.
However, the Ten Towers remains oblivious to the fact that the Divine Cult has no connection to Argyrion. Even the relic buried in Algoth City has been mobilized in the Pope’s plan, with its essence thoroughly extracted.
Though feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the reality of being treated as equals with doomsday cultists like Argyrion, it was something they could gladly accept if it meant obscuring the Ten Towers’ focus.
‘While the Ten Towers are digging around in Algoth City, we prepare ourselves…’
The members of the cult were each adapting to their newfound power, including the blessings of the Great Temple. Among them, Demus was one of the most enthusiastic.
In the internal factional strife of the Divine Cult divided between the Pope’s faction and the Goddess’s faction, Demus kept a distance, but there was one premise that both factions naturally accepted.
‘One day, we must fight the Ten Towers’—the major premise. Whether the fight would be a war of annihilation requiring one side’s extinction or a decisive battle to negotiate the balance would depend on each one’s inner thoughts, but no one denied that war was approaching.
And Demus was the priest of the War God.
He had originally accumulated the most combat experience against the Ten Towers’ tracking party. After all, his younger brother had died, so deepening the grudge against the Ten Towers was only natural.
However, with current strength alone, he couldn’t fight the Ten Towers, so he could only patiently wait. Today, he was still testing new Divine Power.
Then, a call came from Orthes.
“Hey.”
Unlike the various cautious factions of the cult, Demus trusted Orthes quite deeply. Just like the god he served, Enyalius, symbolized simple and clear power rather than war’s trickery, he firmly held onto the trust once given.
This allowed the Enyalius cult to focus comfortably on training in Holy Power and Fighting Spirit while the factions of Glaucus and Phoibos struggled over Orthes.
“It’s been a while. What’s up?”
“I need your help.”
Though there were times when Orthes needed to be called by the Divine Cult, it was relatively rare for Orthes to require the Divine Cult’s assistance. Orthes had far more resources than any individual could mobilize. Usually, help flows from those with resources to those without.
Demus was pleasantly surprised to be able to repay the favor he received from his comrade.
“Alright, what is it?”
But soon, his expression began to harden. Shocking details in the old records of the Divine Cult regarding the ‘Traitor Cult’ and that there was someone behind these traitor cults.
“There are cults that operated normally and were later expelled by the Divine Cult. Those are the ones I’m talking about…”
“Right, we called them the Traitor Cults. And you’re saying there’s someone behind them?”
“Yes. Those traitors all ended up calling forth monsters, false gods, born from relics in their final phase. There is someone preparing for the birth of such false gods.”
“How did you find that out?”
“A larval form of the false god has appeared in Algoth City. Yours has one mind but multiple bodies, endowed with abilities too great to handle alone.”
Demus sensed that this matter was beyond his capacity to decide alone. To suppress the false god, which had inflicted indelible scars on the cult every time it appeared, a cross-cult alliance would be necessary.
“Although it hasn’t fully developed, it is sufficiently dangerous. We must urgently hold a meeting to discuss this.”
“Thank you. If you need to find me, please relay the news to the Tabuning faction among the participants of the Amimone Tower Master’s decisive battle.”
In that short time, Demus admired Orthes’s skill, influencing the power struggle at Amimone Tower.
*
The tests set by the Ten Towers for the Tower Master’s decisive battle were quite traditional.
They almost applied the criteria being evaluated in the previous Tower Master’s selection regarding magic power supply and the standards used in the Mage Tower’s evaluations.
Of course, the first exam posted was more of a preliminary round to filter out those unqualified rather than a proper test.
In other words, if you were seriously considering becoming the Tower Master of Amimone, there should be no reason to fail.
Surprisingly, in an exam where there should be no reason to fail, multiple candidates were eliminated.
The sponsors behind the candidates had started to take more direct action since the night before.
Knemon witnessed a candidate in front of him clutching his stomach and collapsing with a scream of “KRAAAAH!” He would soon be transported to a hospital and eliminated.
“Well, they’re all quite reckless.”
“Is that so? Well, I think they’re being pretty restrained since they’re not randomly snatching people like on the first night.”
Hearing Orthes, who initially was one of those ‘randomly snatching people’, made Knemon’s head throb.
“Is it really okay to just scoop up people like that?”
It was clear the previous candidate had suddenly collapsed from some kind of poison. Yet Orthes seemed unfazed, casually munching on the snacks prepared in the exam hall.
“It’s fine. There are ways to identify everything.”
He then added quietly, “And having an excuse to eat this stuff allows me to wander around and look for that guy, doesn’t it?”
The biological entity that the spirit parasite initially presented as a candidate had already been secured, but the parasite hadn’t approached again. Therefore, Orthes was busily wandering around looking for traces of a certain someone exerting influence somewhere in the exam hall.
Knemon doubted that someone who had been hugely affected by Orthes last night could easily reveal himself, yet he believed Orthes would have his own scheming in mind.
“This is the opposite of what I expected. I thought they’d influence the Tower Master candidates somehow to get involved in the decisive battle.”
Orthes rubbed his chin, looking exasperated.
‘After saying that, he’ll probably find a way and come back a few hours later,’ he thought.
Knemon, not giving much concern to Orthes’s troubles, stepped forward to take the exam. What he needed to do hadn’t changed; he would become the Tower Master of Amimone.
Waving at Knemon as he calmly headed towards the exam site, Orthes began to move again.
If he couldn’t find any prey immediately, he should at least prepare the traps more sturdily.
A notification from Demus had arrived on the device in his hand.
*
The incident in Algoth City didn’t unfold as Argyrion had anticipated.
To be precise, it did not go as Nastion had anticipated.
At least, he had expected Sprigo to be alive, but he had died, as had Drakma, who had deployed alongside him. Protocol mandated immediate return upon a commander’s death.
It seemed possible they had been captured, but they were designed to explode automatically if neutralized.
All forces dispatched to Algoth City had vanished. Nastion viewed this grim reality with shame.
However, the other executives, including Halto, did not blame Nastion.
“It’s certain there’s an adversary.”
“But there’s no evidence.”
“After all this, do you not see? The lack of evidence is evidence!”
“No.”
Nastion was taken aback, but the executives had their own reasoning. If a mage capable of accurately eliminating Argyrion had been deployed by the Ten Towers, there should have been traces left.
The mobilization of a powerful mage was indeed like that.
However, there were no records of the mage who completely evaporated Argyrion—where they arrived from, what command chain they received orders through, nothing.
Attempting so obsessively to hide their tracks and succeeding could only point to an adversary.
Nastion felt skepticism toward himself for finding their arguments persuasive.
Now that the situation had reached this point, he couldn’t bring himself to oppose the directive to assume the existence of an ‘adversary.’ Halto declared while surveying the surroundings.
“Our first objective is to uncover the identity of the adversary. We can’t keep chasing with vague speculation forever.”
“But there are no clues?”
“Then let’s create some.”
Argyrion was willing to endure any sacrifice necessary to catch a lead on the ‘adversary.’ Even if it meant sacrificing a few of the once-recruited Tower Masters.
This would set the stage for the encounter between Argyrion’s faction, which aimed to create human bombs in Algoth City, and the minions of the spirit parasite.
