765 – Like a Warrior (11)
Let’s not waste the sacrifices of Warrior Ishtar and everyone from the Warrior Party who bravely volunteered for a self-destructive special operation for us.
Let’s unleash an assault so powerful that it would be impossible to even think about the existence of a self-destruct attack on the enemy’s flagship.
Just the thought of this could drive Ishtar and the Warrior Party to madness, but Jezel even went so far as to confirm it.
“What if our communicator and theirs get mixed up or connect? Then the noble sacrifice that took on the self-destruct operation could turn to nothing.”
“Is that possibility significant enough?”
Ziang, who had a talent for subtle communication as an assassin, wasn’t that well-versed in the mechanics of communication magic devices. When she asked, Jezel calmly conveyed her thoughts.
“The flagship itself is a massive chunk of magical power. The mana waves generated from it are anything but ordinary. If the communication magic device can’t withstand the powerful mana waves and gets pushed away, sending messages to unintended locations, there’s a high possibility that the Foundation’s magicians interpreting our communication might cause malfunctions.”
Ziang accepted Jezel’s meticulous concern about potentially becoming a burden on their sacrifices.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“Trust and wait. They have taken on the burden of going upward. Our job is to bear the Foundation’s attack down here.”
That’s right.
It’s not just difficult to infiltrate.
The Foundation’s full-scale offensive.
Stopping that was also a problem.
Everyone tensed up and prepared thoroughly for the Foundation’s ‘first attack.’
The first assault intended to disrupt the displays would undoubtedly be the strongest one.
There was a chance they might get hit directly by the rumored ‘nuclear weapon.’
“Defensive measures are in place, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Dimensional equipment.
Originally, the Foundation had collected and isolated this equipment, preventing it from being released into the market. Due to its rarity, it was regarded as a precious relic or even a national treasure among nobles and various organizations.
Surprisingly, there were quite a number of people who chose to hide and conceal rather than unveil treasures they couldn’t protect.
“We approached those organizations and promised substantial support with the Revolutionary Army’s manpower and Dark Trading Company’s resources; we collected dimensional equipment by paying the price.”
“Did you foresee such matters and gather such equipment ahead of time?”
“I realized it by reviewing the Academy’s curriculum. Flight magic in the third year, dimensional magic in the fourth year. The techniques of flight and dimension are of greater value than we initially perceived.”
The technology that the world’s foremost educational institution, the Gift Academy, took seriously could not be trivialized.
If there was value in it that she didn’t know, it likely wasn’t inferior to what she already knew.
Based on that judgment, Jezel’s bold investment led to vast amounts of dimensional magic tools that could even repel nuclear weapons today.
“Senior upperclassmen who already joined this operation have activated the dimensional equipment and prepared to strike back at the right moment.”
Meanwhile, elite magic battalions dispatched from various countries were sequentially preparing grand magic to be launched from the flagship.
Now it was truly only a matter of confrontation.
As the decisive moment approached, with time ticking down, the headquarters’ magicians hurriedly raised the output of their staffs and magic devices, their faces filled with confusion, and then they screamed.
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[Unauthorized magical ritual resulting in large-scale invasion…]
Pzzzt, crackle!
The warning device exploded, and a massive emergency siren echoed throughout the facility.
Numerous magic devices slipped out of the control of the lower-ranking magicians, and the high-ranking magicians screamed commands to regain control from the inside.
Yet, the number of magic devices going dark increased one by one, and this phenomenon began to affect even the magicians.
“Ah! My head, it hurts!”
“The ritual is entering without permission!!”
“No, I can’t endure this knowledge… Don’t shove this kind of thing inside me!!!”
A single magician from a small nation’s palace magic battalion couldn’t manage his mana and collapsed, experiencing a magical backlash.
This marked the start of a multitude of magicians gathering from all over, pale-faced, concentrating with all their might on self-reflection and mana meditation.
“Irene, Sandkooker! What’s happening?!”
“Mana disaster. The Foundation has caused an artificial mana disaster.”
The phenomenon where overlapping collisions of high-ranking magicians permanently warped natural mana, destabilizing the world.
This phenomenon, lasting anywhere from decades to thousands of years, injected unwanted forbidden knowledge into every magician belonging to this archipelago and compelled them to exert their mana.
Moreover, this method was harmful to humans—triggering a type of spirit magic that, if one lacked training and enlightenment, would forcibly activate, even at the cost of their soul!
“Nuclear weapons haven’t even begun yet, and the gap of power is already this significant?!”
Jezel seethed, but the Dark Trading Company was not filled with pushovers either.
“Blessing of Ignorance.”
“Addendum.”
“Collective Sleep.”
The magic of high-ranking members of the Dark Trading Company, all alumni of the Gift Academy, mitigated the unmanageable knowledge, buried it under existing knowledge, and seamlessly neutralized the mana manipulation during unconsciousness.
Jezel was genuinely grateful for the excellent performance of her seniors, but she hesitated upon hearing their cries.
“How rewarding it is to cultivate magic learned to forget the taste of black bread from that hellish academy.”
“I, a high-ranking official outside, was a perennial inferior student in the academy, and today, that addendum function became a source of pride.”
“I had no confidence in my skills to win against those study maniacs, so I trained my ultimate combat technique to reduce classmates through unauthorized absences, and now it’s finally shining!”
Is it really such a ridiculous reason behind the magic and function helping us?!
“…Whatever the reason, it helped a lot.”
“It’s just the beginning.”
“Now that the small fry are down, bigger troubles will arise.”
“Isn’t it a relief that they aren’t a hindrance since they can’t help anyway?”
“The backup batteries just ran out.”
“Our ace fighters need to exert their full power.”
“Quite a few famous magicians will surely perish today.”
The seniors’ warnings quickly became reality.
The first ones to become increasingly pale were the commanders of the magic communication soldiers, who were managing communications between battalions through mind link magic in place of the now-inactive communication magic devices.
These communication commanders, acting like relays of the mind link magic, were hit head-on by an overwhelming amount of mana information contamination as they sorted through reports from dozens of people.
“Gah!”
“Cut the connection…!”
“Just because you say to cut it doesn’t mean it will!”
A few commanders, unable to cope with the flood of mana information contamination, collapsed bleeding, unable to withstand the burden equivalent to dozens of magic communication soldiers.
Emergency efforts rushed to help the fallen magicians.
“Disperse the contamination!”
“If we disperse, how will we withstand it?!”
“Put everything into magic. Shoot it outside!”
The academy teaches various techniques for using functions.
Among them, there are methods to handle powers that exceed one’s limit.
[The progression of information contamination is rapidly decreasing.]
[988%]
[876%]
[631%]
It was good that they had started to withstand the first offensive to some extent, but during the process of venting the information contamination into magic, all the allies felt a chill run down their spine.
“Ahaha, it’s been a while.”
“I am so pleased to see my lovely daughter’s friends once again as a father.”
“How has your training at the academy been?”
“Have you been eating regularly?”
“I hope you’re spending fulfilling days.”
“If not, I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed in us too early.”
Magicians began to relay the chairman’s messages amidst the chaos of releasing information.
The first to shake off the influence of the message was Irene, who, with fierce eyes, looked up at the sky.
“There’s a trap spell set up to deliver designated messages sequentially during the process of venting information contamination.”
“Does that mean they knew we would take this approach?!”
“It’s not just that they knew. The fact that everyone’s statements chain together without overlapping means they managed to dominate the minds of the contaminated magicians all at once, directly accessing their unconscious. If they had set their minds to it… they could have bitten their tongues and suffocated us.”
They are watching.
This…
This kind of deadly attack…
There’s still plenty of room on their hands.
Irene’s warning filled everyone’s hearts with a heavy, boulder-like feeling.
“I have come to give you two gifts today.”
“One is a thank you, as a father, for taking care of my daughter.”
“I was quite concerned about what gift would be appropriate, but certainly, a gift for students must be academic enlightenment and understanding, right?”
“Don’t be too sad that only magicians received gifts. Soon, my gifts will be delivered to other classes as well.”
Other classes too…?
Does that mean even more information contamination spreads?
“The information released is automatically generating spells and forming the magic circle!”
“Oh no, this is a massive communication network!!”
“Cut it!!! The longer we wait, the harder it’ll be to sever it with less power!! If we can’t cut it now, we’ll never be able to do it!!!”
“We can’t sever it! This is a connection injected through the International Identity Registration Magic Repository connected to the minds of every single ‘citizen’ worldwide!!”
“What…?!”
A registration magic circle that offers free talent testing for every child under the age of 10, as long as they get registered.
For those not stateless, this was an inevitable magical linkage that each person obtains first and retains the longest, which was now the Foundation’s attack conduit.
The secondary manifestation of information contamination began to spread over all classes, be it archers, scholars, or any other class, flooding everyone in attendance with information contamination.
“I was a bit hesitant to give a big gift to those who were content with small ones.”
“I apologize for saying this, but I’m quite the value-oriented person.”
“If you’re all satisfied with my small offering, I’ll make sure to use the big gift in a better place.”
The entire allied forces across the archipelago fell into an unusable state from a single chain attack of information contamination.
The last of the Three Great Evils.
The chairman of the Wahyhiemhai Foundation, the First Wahyhiemhai, ended the first move with an overwhelming victory.
“Oh, I thought you wouldn’t be capable of raising my adoptive daughter, but you seem to handle a pretty decent strategy.”
A warrior, whose whole body twisted slightly due to the forbidden knowledge of the essential mana cultivation method, looked grotesquely at a 90-degree angle.
At the end of that head stood someone who couldn’t be underestimated even by the chairman of the Foundation, a person referred to as the namer of the Three Great Evils and comparable to an opponent.
“Seonhwang. Why are you here?”
“How could a parent refuse a child’s request? When children go far away to play, a parent must follow at least one to ensure safety; hence, I have come this far with this heavy body.”
As Seonhwang lightly swung his staff and struck the ground, an unprecedented massive circle blessed all the spirits of the afflicted allied forces with the Underworld’s unique anti-magic body.
The anti-magic body that rejects all magical phenomena unwanted by its owner instantly overturned the crisis of extinction facing the allied forces.
Chairman of the Foundation vs. Emperor Papa.
The match of the papas had begun.
