In Demus’s mind, countless thoughts floated and sank like waves.
Who is Carisia? No, what is she?
Demus reflected on the despair of those days. To explain how he came before the Ten Commandments, he had to dig a little deeper into the past.
When he became the leader of the combat priesthood of the War God Cult, he once boldly plotted to assassinate the Tower Master. This was when the hideout of the cult was exposed, and the previous leader was murdered.
Rarely, one of the Tower Masters from the Ten Towers took to the field personally. The reason why such a significant figure, far exceeding Blasphemia, stepped in remained uncertain to this day.
One could only speculate that they were intimidated by the ancient power of the Divine Cult.
By the time Demus returned, the hideout of the Enyalius cult was already in ruins.
Now, as the foremost warrior of the War God Enyalius cult, even in that youthful, foolish, and inexperienced time, Demus was still strong.
Demus gathered testimonies from the survivors.
The cult leader fought against the Tower Master. The crucial point was that a confrontation had indeed taken place. While the leader sacrificed his own life to buy time, the Enyalius cult managed to escape.
The leader inflicted a fatal wound on the Tower Master by exhausting his life. Thus, the forces of the Ten Towers couldn’t immediately pursue the fleeing cultists.
As far as Demus knew, a wounded lion is dangerous.
But a healed lion is even more perilous, especially if that lion remembers the grudge against those who harmed it.
Therefore, Demus plotted an assassination against the Tower Master. At that moment, he believed it was the only way to ensure the survival of the Enyalius cult.
And then, he witnessed the power of the Ten Commandments.
‘…It was closer to magic than to humanity.’
It seemed that the Tower Master was not wielding the Ten Commandments; rather, it felt as if the Ten Commandments were manipulating the Tower Master. Great magic, which should have remained buried in history, was emitted from the shattered limbs of the Tower Master.
His body stiffened. The overwhelming density of magic was beyond description. The pressure of this compressed magic crushed everything within its influence.
The Tower Master, bathed in golden light, appeared less human and more like a brilliance compressed within a human form. With each step he took, the surrounding space evaporated into light.
In the end, the Tower Master appeared as if he were floating. A circular void formed around his body, filled with magic energy.
Faced with this spectacle, Demus felt despair. Witnessing the endless flow of immense magical power from the golden figure.
The divine power embedded in the physical body was cursed by the laws of this world. He screamed that it distorted and crushed all existence in utter despair.
His revival was solely due to the Tower Elders, those ancient beings among them that were regarded as longtime residents.
Elders older than the Tower Master, who cling to the wisdom inherent in the Ten Commandments even while the Tower passed to others.
They appeared and confronted the Tower Master. Demus still remembered fragments of the words they uttered.
‘Accessing the Ten Commandments in a broken body, how foolish…’
‘Have you been swept away by the phantoms of the Death King?’
‘Where is the intruder?’
Demus closed his eyes.
The sensation he felt from Carisia was similar to that when he witnessed the light-enhanced Tower Master.
But how could a human be anything like the Tower Master, let alone the Ten Commandments?
He gave up conjecturing about Carisia’s identity. It was a topic beyond Demus’s understanding.
Instead, he pondered the purpose of Orthes.
If his senses hadn’t suddenly malfunctioned, it was clear that Carisia had some sort of connection to the Ten Commandments or at the very least, the Ten Towers.
It wouldn’t be strange to consider her an adversary of the Divine Cult.
Was Orthes an enemy of the Divine Cult?
Suddenly, a question arose deep within him. However, Demus was a reasonable man. If he aimed to eradicate the Divine Cult, Orthes would have had many opportunities by now.
The fact that the Pluton Great Temple had been reclaimed by the Divine Cult was evidence that Orthes was not their foe. In that case…
‘Why would he take in such a grotesque being?’
If we assume Orthes’s ultimate goal did not contradict the interests of the Divine Cult, and if Carisia is related to the Ten Towers…
At that moment, the name Knemon flashed through Demus’s mind. He would ultimately become the master of the Apex Towers and gain significant speaking rights in the magical society.
What would happen if the name of the Apex Tower Master brought forth tales of ‘another heir of the Ten Commandments’?
This would cause quite a storm in the magical society. Even the Ten Towers would have to lift their considerable weight in response to such fierce waves.
Demus organized his thoughts about the ‘Apex Tower Gift Procedure’ he had heard from Orthes. Orthes had initiated it, and Orthes brought it to a close. That was all.
If someone could gift the Apex Tower at their whim, what could they do with the Ten Towers?
‘Is Orthes thinking of using the Ten Towers to bring down the Ten Towers…?’
This was truly a terrifying scheme. It wasn’t just that the powerful Ten Towers could be deceived; it was the fact that Carisia, wielding such formidable power, was following Orthes.
Orthes was effectively holding both divine power and magic in his hands.
Demus imagined the moment Orthes’s scheme bore fruit.
While there had been countless clashes between the Ten Towers and their challengers, there had never been a war that transcended disputes between the Ten Towers themselves.
What if such chaos arrived, a great war that would overshadow all else? Would the magical society endure?
‘To incite such a war for the deities!’
Demus lamented inwardly.
That friend should have been worshiping our god instead of Phoibos.
Someday, he should suggest establishing friendly ties when delivering Enyalius’s introductory text on warfare.
*
Lately, Demus has been strangely close to me.
Except for the rough start, we seemed to get along well, but suddenly he started to feel a peculiar sense of kinship with me.
As long as he doesn’t shower me with too much goodwill, it’s good for my health, so I silently accepted the various books Demus gave me.
In fact, I was so free that I had to occupy my time reading even such books.
Since the multi-account troublemaker biological entity vanished, I had nothing to do in Algoth City. I had used the uproar of the Argyrion folks to capture the traitor among them and fulfilled my quota for posing as a Blasphemia agent.
With nothing left to do, it was the same for Carisia. Even after uprooting the traitor, the main forces of Argyrion remained hidden.
Even the indirect tracking using Silver Threads was met with nothing but the priests’ repeated replies: ‘Cannot find the target. Please check the line or confirm the correct route.’
So, the two of us were simply passing time cheering for Knemon or watching Kine’s impressive demonstrations of holy power.
I had already suggested to my boss, ‘Can’t we just leave it to Knemon and go home?’ but all I got was a vigorous shake of his head with his rich gray hair flying about.
The cautious view was to step back once the final battle was concluded and Knemon’s inauguration as Tower Master became certain. As a wage earner, I couldn’t go against my boss’s feelings.
Through several tests, Knemon showcased his skills and quickly became a final candidate.
Today at last, the final exam was being held.
The remaining candidate, along with one trusted mage from the tower, made up the two-person teams for the exam. All participating teams would be given some sort of emblem.
Then they would be shoved into the barrier and declared, ‘The team that acquires the most emblems when the barrier is lifted will have their candidate become the Tower Master.’
Though it was disguised as a test of the personal abilities of the Tower Master and their leadership of the mages, it ultimately meant selecting the person who could fight the best or had the most connections.
It was nice to say they were elite mages, but they could just as easily recruit mercenaries from somewhere. Sponsors might suddenly bring back someone expelled from the original tower and attach them to their preferred candidate.
Originally, I had planned to briefly step down as the secretary of Hydra Corporation to register at Knemon’s tower, but I was refused. Carisia insisted, ‘You need to stay outside’ while Knemon said, ‘Trust in my abilities,’ so my companion ended up being Kine.
“What’s making you so uneasy?”
After seeing Knemon and Kine off, I turned to Carisia.
“Do I look that way?”
“Your expression is the same as always, but your tone is subtly stiff.”
Actually, that wasn’t the case. I was merely recalling the psychology of when she particularly wanted me beside her.
“I didn’t see anything in Phoibos’s elimination.”
That would be unlikely. If Carisia had some certainty about anything, she would have told me long ago.
“The state of magic flowing through the city seems off. It’s not something that can be dealt with in the testing grounds.”
“Isn’t it just because the extra-dimensional flame-retardant work isn’t finished yet? With the entire land polluted, it might have slightly leaked into the city’s magic lines. The Mage Tower Core should automatically purify it.”
Carisia shook her head. She turned her back from the entrance of the test site and gazed at the Amimone Tower in the center of Algoth City.
“…That Mage Tower Core is the most ominous part.”
