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"I didn't get to see the power of the Ten Towers."On the way out of the examination hall, Kine quietly muttered.
Indeed, the reason Carisia brought Kine to Elysion was to see if she was truly willing to cooperate with Hydra Corporation and challenge the Ten Towers.
Could her desire for revenge withstand the overwhelming power of the Ten Towers?
But the Ten Towers didn't intervene in this terror incident. Although Blasphemia could be seen as part of the Ten Towers' force, Kine didn't witness the true mystical power wielded by the Ten Towers.
I nodded.
"Indeed. I expected the Ten Towers to crush Argyron's attack instantly, but surprisingly, it turned into a confrontation with Blasphemia."
"Does the Ten Towers think there's no need to intervene themselves? Do they consider Blasphemia sufficient?"
It wasn't something I could know for sure.
As we reached the magi-engine train station, the loudspeaker crackled back to life.
This time, it wasn't a pirate broadcast from Argyron.
"Mages of Elysion, please be cautious. Extra-dimensional infectors released by the terrorist group are still lurking around Elysion."
"Special personnel have been dispatched to handle the infectors. If you spot an infector, please avoid it and contact Elysion's safety and disaster office."
"The infectors appear to have been spread in areas with significant infrastructure and high pedestrian traffic─"
Kine visibly tensed up. Certainly, the magi-engine train station was an ideal place for Silver Thread hosts to hide.
"Don't worry, Kine. We have the boss with us."
"Orthes, are you planning to shove all the work onto the boss?"
Carisia took my words as a joke. But I wasn't joking. Honestly, I doubted that any number of Silver Thread hosts could even scratch Carisia.
"No, it's not that. I just have a bad feeling…"
A unit of soldiers wearing visors approached from a distance. I sensed dark mana emanating around them.
Carisia easily identified them.
"They're undead soldiers from the Black Dark Magic Tower. I figured it would be either Silver Iron or Black Dark."
***
The Ten Towers did not take their eyes off Elysion even after the situation seemed resolved following the Argyron mage's self-destruction.
The assumption was that Argyron wouldn't send just one terrorist. If the main culprit was killed before achieving their goal, it would mean a waste of manpower for Argyron.
Believing that there must be at least one more backup to continue the plan if the main culprit was killed early, the Ten Towers initiated additional search operations.
Of course, the backup had long been dead, their brain fried by Carisia's magic, but the Ten Towers hadn't received information about the attacker at the examination hall yet.
Silver Iron Magic Tower and Black Dark Magic Tower clashed over the composition of the search team. Silver Thread replicated and produced using mana from infected mages.
Everyone agreed that Silver Iron's automatons or Black Dark's undead were ideal to minimize damage from Silver Thread infection. They were reproducible tools even if destroyed.
"Can't you see the Silver Thread? It's incompatible with metallic automatons. Sending out the undead is the most variable-free solution."
"Precisely because they're in the same category, we might be able to control the Silver Thread with Silver Iron's arcane techniques."
It was undeniable that both towers were driven by a desire to harness the extra-dimensional artifacts.
Extra-dimensional artifacts were supposed to be jointly sealed and monitored by the entire Ten Towers.
But the towers knew. Behind the scenes, everyone was researching the extra-dimension to find clues to ascension.
This time, only the two towers best suited to handle the Silver Thread openly showed their greed, but depending on the secrets Argyron held, the entire Ten Towers might turn their gaze.
Reluctant to yield new clues, the two towers agreed to dispatch their forces but not interfere with each other.
The squads of automatons and undead deployed in Elysion scattered according to their masters' orders. The obsessive search began under the pretext of eliminating remaining Silver Thread hosts.
It was a coincidence that Kine encountered the Black Dark's undead instead of Silver Iron's automatons.
***
Kine felt a familiar power from within the undead. Simultaneously, confusion overwhelmed her.
That power shouldn't exist in Elysion, the sacred place of magic.
Divine power. The power of those who believe in gods.
The undead squad slowly disassembling Silver Thread hosts didn't fit the typical image of skeletal soldiers from old stories.
They were giants covered head-to-toe in black reinforced fiber artificial muscles. The dark glossy helmets on their faces did not allow any view beyond the visor. The metal plates around their hearts implied the presence of cores within the undead.
Orthes whispered to Kine, who felt the divine power from the undead.
"Don't be too tense. You'll draw suspicion."
"How…!"
"The undead handled by the Black Dark Magic Tower are different from conventional undead. Liches store their souls in reliquaries to achieve near-immortality, don't they? These are just improvements on that method."
They conjure the souls of those they've killed into magic stones, creating pseudo-reliquaries. These cores are then installed into artificial bodies.
Constructed from reinforced alloys and special fibers, each muscle strand embedded with top-tier reinforcement magic engravings, their durability far surpassed traditional undead.
A culmination of the capital only achievable by the Ten Towers.
The sight of attaching soul-bound stones to artificial bodies, reminiscent of planting seeds, earned them the name Spartoi (Σπαρτοί), meaning "sown ones."
The special undead, refined by the Black Dark Magic Tower over history, could use the power of the soul while ensuring absolute safety by severing the connection between the magic stone and the body if the soul resisted.
"This method has one drawback. Using ordinary souls only creates slightly tougher undead. To make Spartoi cost-effective, you need souls that have accumulated power, like mages or…"
Orthes deliberately trailed off. That alone was enough for Kine to understand.
Mages, or priests.
Kine counted the number of Spartoi deployed in Elysion. At a glance, there were hundreds, possibly thousands.
The number of ordinary believers might reach tens or even hundreds of thousands.
But how many priests, who could perform miracles by accumulating divine power in their souls, were there?
Even if the entire cult gathered all their priests, would they reach ten thousand?
Kine asked in astonishment.
"How did they gather so many?"
Orthes gestured with his eyes. Carisia created a soundproof barrier. Slowly moving out of sight of the mage controlling the Spartoi, Orthes murmured.
"Oh, it's a simple story, Kine."
The priests once ruled this world. They occupied a position similar to today's mages, both in status and number.
"Where do you think all those priests went?"
The soul-bound stones embedded in the Spartoi were the accumulated evidence of millennia of slaughter.
"Well, they probably didn't use souls that survived over a thousand years in those mass-produced soldiers. Such souls are precious. Considering compatibility of soul-bound stones from different eras, they might have used souls from the last one or two centuries?"
"…Can you so easily subjugate an enemy's soul?"
"Resistance and the ability to use powers are separate issues. Spartoi's artificial bodies are entirely under the Black Dark Magic Tower's control. Forced extraction of power might accelerate soul consumption, though."
How many soul-bound stones has the Ten Towers accumulated?
Orthes ended his whisper with this question. Kine realized that the Ten Towers truly considered the souls of believers as consumables.
They were batteries for operating the Spartoi. Depending on the soul installed, the spells they could use varied, akin to magic-engraved drives.
It was a horrifying fate. The Ten Towers literally used humans as disposable items.
Kine didn't see the power of the Ten Towers; she saw their ugliness.
Her vague desire for revenge now took a clear form.
'My talent is…'
Coincidentally, Kine's mana was of the dark attribute, the same as the Black Dark Magic Tower controlling the Spartoi.
Kine realized what she had to do.
Orthes had been making her learn dark magic, promising she could reunite with her family's souls through necromancy.
Necromancy involved summoning and banishing souls. Orthes had been preparing her from the beginning to deal with the Spartoi.
Even knowing she was being used by him, she couldn't refuse. Not only because she needed to obey Orthes to get her family's bodies back but also because she couldn't ignore the plight of the souls being exploited.
She had to send the captured souls back to where they belonged.
From Argyron's terror to witnessing the Spartoi, every moment must have been within Orthes' foresight.
Facing an inescapable destiny, Kine spoke with a solemn expression.
"I've decided, Orthes."
***
"I'll join Hydra Corporation. You are truly cunning."
…?
Suddenly?
What did I do to deserve this insult? I scratched my head and responded.
"Discuss the employment contract with the boss. I'm not in charge of hiring."
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