Chapter 170
Chapter 170
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 170
Chapter Title: Ancient Summons
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Swoosh—
Loan's dark figure, bathed in moonlight, slid swiftly forward.
His heart raced.
He was running so fast, yet why did the stars and moon in the pitch-black night sky seem to stand still?
Fortunately, the once-hazy Magic Tower was coming into sharper focus.
As he ran, Loan replayed the partial magic circle he had seen over and over in his mind until it was seared into his memory.
Since it was only a fragment, he couldn't yet determine the circle's purpose.
None of the magic circles he had studied matched it exactly.
He could infer that it was meant to ‘summon’ something, but that was a common command found in most spells.
‘Maybe the Tower Master of Perception will know.’
She was someone who had memorized every book in the Magic Tower's vast library, even remembering their exact locations.
But he was heading from the east gate, while the Tower Master of Perception was coming from the west. Even if he changed course, it was too uncertain when, how, or where they might meet.
If they missed each other, it would be a waste of precious time.
They had no choice but to meet at the Tower.
Would things be alright until then? It was uncertain if he would even have time to explain the situation and discuss the magic circle with her.
He still didn't know what Mario meant by ‘it is already done’—how far along the process had succeeded.
Fwoosh—
Loan extended his Narrow Path more forcefully, mixing it with the night dew to increase his speed.
The night air mixed into his Convection felt quite cold.
It was a relief.
The accumulated fatigue began to dissipate with the circulation of his mana.
Some time passed.
Loan entered the second village, which lay on a straight line between the first village and the Magic Tower.
The situation here was no different.
Countless bodies littered the area, and the musty smell of burning and the thick stench of blood saturated the air.
The fallen here were different from the first village; members of Brien in their signature matte black robes, fallen monks in rags, and villagers were all mixed together.
Among them, the Brien members seemed to have died recently.
He soon saw why.
At the end of the main road that cut through the village.
Ingrid, the Tower Master of Sensation, and Reinhold, the Tower Master of Conception, were fighting against a large number of Brien members.
Given the considerable number of fallen enemies, he had intended to join them quickly, but a single glance told him it wasn't necessary.
Ingrid was unleashing destructive magical attacks on her enemies at a range so close it resembled martial arts.
The word ‘sensory’ came to mind unbidden.
Reinhold exploited his opponents' openings with clever magic, mixing two or more elemental attacks.
In this way, the two Tower Masters, each fighting in a style that clearly reflected the nature of their tower, had already decided the outcome of the battle.
“Gah!”
As Reinhold unleashed a burst of flame in the abdomen of a Brien warlock, only three people were left standing.
Ingrid, sensing his presence, greeted Loan with a bittersweet smile.
“Well now. We left first, yet we got held up here...”
“Not at all. Thanks to you, they've all been wiped out, so we've bought some time. By the way, were there any Grave executives?”
Reinhold answered, buttoning his shirt.
“When we arrived, there was no one powerful enough to be called an executive.”
That meant their work here was done.
Loan immediately scanned the surroundings, searching for the marks he had seen before.
Puzzled by Loan's sudden movement, the two Tower Masters tilted their heads and followed him.
“As I thought...”
When he pushed aside the pile of corpses, a pattern on the ground was revealed.
“What is this?”
Ingrid, whose sense of smell was as keen as her other senses, pinched her nose and asked.
Loan replied.
“Let's talk on the way. I think we're short on time.”
Loan conveyed what had happened in the previous village to the two via telepathy, matching their pace as they ran toward the Magic Tower.
-...I suspected a pattern, so I didn't check every symbol drawn in the village. It was more urgent to see if there were more symbols like these. And now that I'm here, I see there are. I think if we combine these symbols and connect them with a line, like the two villages on this straight path...
-It would form a magic circle.
Reinhold offered, his tone somber.
Ingrid shook her head vigorously as they ran.
-Is it really possible to construct such a massive magic circle? There can't be anyone with that much mana.
-Yes. That's what I've been wondering, too. It seems impossible, no matter how you look at it. So I was thinking on my way here. It doesn't seem to be for implementing destructive magic.
Reinhold's telepathic message continued.
-I think so too. Then, hmm. If it's something that requires specific conditions and consumes less of the caster's mana...
-Yes. It's likely a summoning.
Loan stated with conviction this time.
Ingrid's telepathic reply was tinged with both curiosity and disgust.
-What in the world are they trying to summon that's so great? If so, could this be a ritual to open a gate to the demon world?
-I don't know. We have to consider that possibility.
-Mmm...
Reinhold conveyed his worried thoughts.
-Erasing it won't do any good. Seeing how they deliberately mutilated and piled up the bodies, the condition must have been to let the blood soak into the ground.
-Yes. In any case, it seems certain we're too late.
He was indirectly telling them they needed to hurry.
Fortunately, the two Tower Masters understood his meaning. Putting into practice the idea that this was no time to conserve mana, their speed increased slightly.
Even so, the three continued their discussion via telepathy, their mental conversation pausing only when they noticed changes in their surroundings.
“To do such a horrible thing even to children...”
Here and there, private homes were burned, and their residents were invariably dead.
It seemed less a part of the magic circle and more a calamity that befell those in Grave's path.
Swallowing their indignation.
They ran again. And finally.
The outskirts of the city of Schwerin.
Here, a completely different scene was unfolding.
“Those people are...”
“Mages from outside the Tower.”
A true melee was taking place.
A great number of mages and warlocks were mixed together, unleashing a dizzying array of diverse spells.
Amidst the chaos, Loan spotted a familiar face.
It was a mage who had been there when he first met the modernist mages, like Stife and Joseph, by the lake.
The modernist mages, who had argued that mages should venture out into the world, were taking the lead and fighting against Grave.
Boom—Kwakwang!
Flames raged everywhere, the ground shook, and then a massive wall of ice would suddenly rise.
They couldn't completely overpower their opponents, but when one of them delayed the enemy by attacking with a powerful spell they had mastered,
the mages would take turns repeating the process, a strategy they used to protect civilians and evacuate them toward the Magic Tower in the city center.
Loan quickly conveyed his thoughts.
-You two seniors, please help them. I'll go check if there are any symbols.
As he watched Ingrid and Reinhold disappear into the dark horde, scattering flashes of light, he thought.
‘I hate to say it, but if the modernist mages are holding their own, their opponents must be weak.’
Therefore, the crucial task of drawing the symbols and fulfilling the conditions must have been assigned to the executives. The stronger ones capable of such a task were likely already busy elsewhere.
Loan looked back and forth, unfolding a map in his mind.
A highly detailed map drawn to a small scale, allowing him to see everything at a glance by drawing lines between locations, using the Magic Tower, the moon, and the stars as reference points.
On it, he inferred and placed the symbols situated within the vast terrain, along with any other symbols that might derive from them.
And.
Amidst the fierce battle unfolding before him, he struggled to find the exact point that would connect in a straight line with the village he had passed and the Magic Tower—a point that could fulfill the conditions of the formation.
‘There.’
The rather large building he found with conviction was a market.
It should have been open on all sides for easy entry and exit, but in this chaos, the fact that all its doors were closed seemed highly suspicious.
Instead of looking for an open entrance, Loan broke down a door and went inside.
He was a step too late.
A scene of slaughter had already unfolded, and the perpetrators were gone.
Once again, he suppressed his anger and checked for the symbol beneath the victims.
He then recombined what he had confirmed in all three locations to deduce its meaning.
The important thing now was to confirm ‘what’ was being summoned.
Was it not destructive magic, as he suspected, or if it was closer to a summoning, what were they trying to summon?
Fortunately, a form similar to a magic circle he had encountered in the past finally became visible.
It looked quite similar to the magic circle of the demon Naberius, whom he had met in the underground city of Rhodes.
‘He had summoned a giant crone and skeletons.’
Extracting meaning from the shapes, he finally distilled it into a few words.
‘Summon. Bone. Awaken.’
The moment he realized this.
Rumble—
A vibration was felt from deep within the earth.
A perception only possible for Loan, who had all five senses wide open.
It was momentary, but when connected with the meaning he had discovered, it felt ominous.
Loan changed direction and headed straight for the south gate, where Werner, the Tower Master of Implementation, would be.
‘Localized defense is meaningless now.’
With conviction—
Loan, who had arrived near the Magic Tower at a blinding speed while cutting down everything that shouldn't be alive, was momentarily bewildered by the pandemonium unfolding before him.
It was because of the countless mages, centered around Werner, who were completely overwhelming the Grave forces.
The mages, whom he thought would be defending from within the Tower, had all rushed outside.
They hadn't hesitated to step forward for the ordinary people living nearby.
It was even beautiful.
Amidst the dense waves of mana created by the high-level mages and Grave members, where magical energies clashed, the night was brightly illuminated by the diverse spells each displayed as if showing off.
Seeing the promise he had made with them fulfilled with his own eyes, Loan felt a brief moment of joy.
“Loan!”
He quickly turned his head at someone's call.
The Tower Master of Perception and Magda were approaching from the opposite direction as if flying toward him.
Magda, who had watched Loan and Anke meet from a few steps behind, gave Loan a slight smile before darting off to join the mages of the Tower.
Amidst the clamor, Loan quickly conveyed the existence of the magic circle to Anke via telepathy.
Fortunately.
Befitting the Tower Master of Perception, she too had noticed something strange, confirmed the symbols, and had come to meet Loan.
The keywords Loan had identified were ‘Summon, Bone, Awaken’.
The ones Anke had confirmed were ‘Soar, Ancient, Being’.
And Anke combined all the keywords and sent her resulting thoughts back to Loan.
-There's a theory that mana stones are so developed in Schwerin because of the life force that seeped into the earth from the ancient, colossal beasts that died here.
-Ancient beasts? Do you mean the beings that vanished with the death of the World Tree?
-Correct.
A terrifying picture immediately formed in his mind.
What if the warlocks knew this and prepared the magic circle to awaken a great beast?
Rumble... rumble...
What if the vibration from deep below, which had just rumbled again, was a precursor to that?
How could they stop the indiscriminate catastrophe that would unfold?
The thought of a giant footprint stomping down on the heads of those pouring out their mana to fight Grave sent a shiver down his spine.
Above all, the biggest problem would be the chaos that would break their ranks.
They needed to alert everyone to the crisis. Furthermore, this was a moment that required a solid defense, a full-scale siege defense, until they could regroup.
‘A siege defense...’
Suddenly, Loan's gaze turned to the Magic Tower.
His eyes swept past the four towers and stopped on the Tower of Implementation.
Of the five towers, it was the only one whose guardian Loan had not communicated with telepathically.
‘They said that unlike the others, the Tower itself is the guardian.’
Just from seeing the power of the Sky Stairs that had sent the mages far, far away, he knew it possessed considerable magical power.
A being that was itself a magical tool, a crystallization of mana stones, a mage that implemented magic on its own, and a magical instrument.
‘What if... I can resonate with the Tower of Implementation itself, just like with the other guardians...’
Sorting through the hypothesis that had come to mind, Loan began to sprint toward the Tower of Implementation.