Surviving The Fourth Calamity

Hilbert Flash is direct and decisive.

After quickly and properly performing the Mage Ceremony for a few Archmages, he immediately stepped out of the Magic Tower and flew straight into the sky.

Now that the three Main Towers stood within the same faction again, individuals like Hill, who had flying privileges in Ruth’s Main Tower, naturally gained the qualifications to fly in the other two main towers.

Otherwise, even if a Ninth Ring Archmage is listed as friendly, they must descend 300 meters outside the cloud cover.

The lower the level, naturally, the further away they need to land.

However, as an affiliate of Sia Tower, the mages of Sia Tower naturally had friendly status.

They had to manually add to the blacklist.

For instance, Delphus and his publicly known alliance members were added to the blacklist of Ruth’s Main Tower.

Naturally, they were also listed in the blacklists of Nicholson Tower and Kamente Tower.

Therefore, if anyone in the Tower of Dark Enigma privately interacts with them, either they meet outside the territory’s realm or they have to grant privileges to them.

However, once such privileges are granted, they will be marked on the comprehensive realm map atop the Main Tower.

Generally speaking, unless someone is planning a public rebellion, they wouldn’t do something so impulsive.

While leaving the monitored territory is indeed safer, the protective shield upheld by the three Main Towers records all those who come and go every day.

If someone leaves frequently or in a regular pattern, they will certainly become a key monitoring target.

That is to say, if Delphus does have an informant in the Tower of Dark Enigma, the person must be from the Nicholson Family.

His determined attitude during the charge, and his specific means of dealing with Hilbert—though it appeared as if a Ninth Ring Archmage completely dismissed the low-tier Seven Rings—Hilbert found during his review that all his spells were precisely targeted at Protection System’s advanced attack types.

For example, the giant crossbow bolt.

Delphus directly used the magic ballista, known as the strongest war machine for tower assaults.

Hilbert had never seen it firsthand when he constructed his Magic Tower, so how could Delphus be certain that the assault had to be similar to the Ninth Ring Mage level?

Even if Delphus didn’t know much, he definitely knew some information related to him.

And these, Pet and his people absolutely couldn’t have figured out so quickly.

Only those in the Tower of Dark Enigma would know clearly.

Hill can be certain that in the eyes of the Great Devils at Sia Tower, the Hainarson Clan is absolutely not very important, not overly worth their special attention.

Of course, attention is paid, but it mostly comes with the general information collected by the Tower of Dark Enigma.

Unless any special news is acquired, otherwise, Sia Tower won’t overly focus on this chicken-rib family as viewed by them.

Compared to the Hainarson, they arguably pay more attention to Delphus.

Regardless if there is an issue with Delphus himself, this attention can’t be wrong... If this guy truly rebels against his family and the magic tower of his origin, and the Defense Tower really misses some fish that slipped through the net, they definitely wouldn’t spare him.

Humans or Devils—betrayers are the most hated of all.

No matter how inglorious the enemy is, that is normal performance.

Only the betrayer, never forgiven forever.

Therefore, for information about Gilbert Hainarson to be so quickly and fluently acquired, Delphus must have his individuals in the Tower of Dark Enigma.

Moreover, at first, he merely warned Hilbert not to become his enemy, but when Nicholson’s people arrived, he directly harbored killing intent towards Hilbert... He must have obtained some more certain information.

For example, Hilbert is not only skilled in strange object creation but also adept in magical arrays.

Especially in defense-type magical arrays.

This gave Delphus a sense of crisis... With such talents, Gilbert must have a lineage extremely close to that of the master of strange objects from the Hainarson.

Being from a noble family of the Defense Tower himself, Delphus, of course, understands that those nobles’ marriage status predominantly involves inter-family alliances of equal status.

Thus, he doesn’t need to think much to guess that Gilbert’s maternal lineage is inevitably of the same family, perhaps even the same branch, as the master of strange objects.

This is the reason why he must eliminate Gilbert without needing any more previous observation.

At that time, despite the Nicholson faction fiercely competing during the construction of the Magic Tower, causing distress to bystanders, their unusual chaos also drew significant attention from the mages of Sia Tower.

Observers pay continuous attention to their movements, from morning till night without pause.

The person who communicated with Delphus would never dare to do such sneaky things on their own turf... that’s no different from plotting openly in broad daylight.

So, there’s only one possibility.

Someone with family in Sia Town, and even before Delphus, no, before Pet warned them, chose to visit their family while everyone else was busy helping Great Magician Nicholson build the Main Tower.

Hilbert believes the number of suspects is definitely no more than ten.

Although Nicholson’s students and descendants do care about family, they clearly love themselves more.

At the time when Nicholson needs them the most, and it’s the best time to flatter this Archmage, they chose to visit family who definitely won’t have problems in a short time?

This isn’t a choice Nicholson would make.

After all, the Archmage surely knows what they have been up to.

As the most capricious Tower Master, Nicholson, who loves to be surrounded by people, could somewhat understand if any of these students, who should be by his side, really had special issues and chose to visit family in Sia Town. At most, the next time he rewards them, he’d put them at the back of the line, giving them slightly lesser rewards.

If there’s no reason, just to take a look... then, how long they’d be ignored would be a big problem.

But Nicholson isn’t one to be too unreasonable; at most, he’d think that by doing so, you don’t want anything from him... In fact, this Archmage is rational, he just doesn’t want to follow that rationale.

So unless it’s someone who’s sure they won’t receive any rewards for the next ten or even several decades, but can still live well, nobody would dare to make such a reckless move.

Hilbert just didn’t want to alarm the suspect, so when investigating, he chose methods that wouldn’t draw attention... lifelike insects.

As Gilbert’s life contained the most and the only living creatures he could observe whenever he wanted, mosquitoes and flies were made in abundance by him, and they were extremely realistic.

There was almost no difference visible to the naked eye.

Insects that rely on the presence of humans naturally evolved over thousands of years to adapt to environmental changes better.

They’re silent, mostly black and translucent... invisible to humans when on the Black Taro.

Small flying insects absolutely won’t enter bright worlds; a little light makes them quietly leave... phototaxis is no longer an insect’s nature.

But in a world void of light, among the Black Taro vines, they reign supreme.

Those who enter, hoping not to lose a drop of blood, unless fully armed... most people who rely on Black Taro for survival have clothes so torn they barely maintain a shred of human dignity.

Especially with mosquitoes’ sharp mouths, even if humans, due to long-term filth, have a thick layer of grime on their skin, these specially long, sharp needles pierce the skin easily.

Mages, of course, aren’t afraid of such things; even clearing these insects is easy.

Yet, they have now almost become symbiotic with the Black Taro.

Although the earth left humans a thin chance of survival, it wasn’t willing... so it made them feel the pain even when they got food.

Humans couldn’t understand such resentment from Mother Earth, hence they only transfer hatred onto the mosquitoes themselves.

This resulted in even with excellent craftsmanship of these little flies, Gilbert had no choice but to keep them in the warehouse.

Though this child could be considered open-hearted, he hadn’t yet transcended the mundane... so, he wasn’t fond of nicknames like the Father of Flies.

But Hilbert, of course, didn’t care.

Even needing to consider Gilbert’s feelings in the Styx, his previous birds were enough to suppress the presence of the flies to a minimum.

Thus, he almost without hesitation transformed these little insects into monitors.

Then, directed them to fly towards Sia Town.

However, during the following period, the reason Hilbert kept silent about everything he saw wasn’t just because he hadn’t confirmed the suspected existence... among a few, although family members indeed had discomfort, Hilbert felt they were following Nicholson’s orders to observe whether this discomfort stemmed from a long journey, or if Sia Town itself had problems.

This Archmage always hides his ruthless nature behind the warmest surface.

Although most in Sia Town aren’t related to him by blood... due to the resource scarcity, the Tower of Dark Enigma found it hard to allow family members lacking talent and just a little Magical Power to live within the range of the Magic Tower.

But it isn’t the same for Sia Tower.

Moreover, as reluctant seekers, listing these apprentices as retinues, taking them along into Sia Tower to enjoy official benefits, it seemed quite normal.

Sia Tower naturally already prepared for this; the resources for apprentices nearly piled into a small mountain... that’s a mountain-shaped heap of storage rings.

For devils who wouldn’t look at such resources, it’s an unspoken demonstration... the benefits you rack your brains for mean nothing in Sia Tower.

Hilbert’s silence also came because he finally discovered the source of Sia Town’s rampant emotions among ordinary people.