Karnak, Monarch of Death

Chapter 268: The Tower of Dawn (2)

The countless spears of light that rained down were indeed a fearsome sight. Each one radiating fearsome power. Even so, there were only a few casualties.

Though deafening explosions echoed one after another, the spears of light didn’t strike the imperial troops directly. Instead, they landed in the gaps between squads and formations. This reduced the number of immediate casualties.

But that didn’t help to reduce the soldiers’ fear. Sure, seeing a blade cleave through a man’s neck was terrifying, but a weapon brushing past your throat without killing you wasn’t any less horrifying.

”Damn it!”

The imperial soldiers darted back and forth, scrambling to avoid the downpour of light. In their panic, some stumbled upon a discovery. They saw an open path of retreat untouched by the spears. Grateful for their luck, or perhaps divine favor, they raced toward it, eager to escape the magical barrage.

What they didn’t know was that they weren’t the only ones who had stumbled upon the fortune.. Most of the imperial army surrounding the Tower of Dawn had also discovered the same retreat route.

Dreltein clicked his tongue while watching the battlefield from the command center. The bulk of the imperial forces were now fleeing down eight separate routes in disarray. Perhaps they thought they were executing a calm, calculated retreat, but that was clearly not the truth.

”He left them an escape on purpose,” muttered Dreltein.

That overwhelming show of force had a very specific purpose. It was a demonstration of power. It was a grand display meant to show them his power, and to dissuade them from attacking him.

For Diogres, it was the only logical course of action. Even if he annihilated the imperial army here, would the empire retreat with its tail between its legs? Of course not. They would only respond by sending even more troops—more mages, more aura users—to finish the job.

No matter how powerful an archmage he was, even Diogres couldn’t ignore the crushing weight of an entire empire. The rain of light spears eventually drove the imperial army back to the outer perimeter of the tower.

Watching them regroup at a distance, Dreltein murmured, ”If this were the old us, we probably would’ve withdrawn by now...”

Elezar shook her head. ”We can’t do that anymore.”

Would they be willing to let every imperial soldier die just to seize Diogres’s body? Of course. After all, every human on the surface would one day rise again as undead. What difference did it make whether they died now or later?

”Still, I’m a little surprised. Was Diogres this powerful when he was alive?” Dreltein commented.

The raw power of his magic wasn’t what astonished him. He had seen it countless times in his past life. What impressed him was the scale and duration of his output. Unless one had already become undead, it was nearly impossible, even for an archmage, to sustain such overwhelming force in a living body.

Dreltein turned to look at Elezar. She, too, was alive in the flesh now, just like Diogres.

He asked her, ”Could you pull something like that off?”

Elezar offered a gentle smile. If it were a short-term clash, she could unleash something even more devastating. When it came to large-scale magical assaults, she was more specialized than Diogres.

”But I couldn’t sustain it like he is now. Not at the moment,” she responded.

What Diogres was doing wasn’t just a feat of his own power.

”The Tower of Dawn is no joke,” she said.

That staggering reserve of mana was a result of his authority as the tower’s master. An archmage could unleash power far beyond their normal limits when fighting on their own domain. After all, it allowed them to thoroughly prepare their spells.

As the rightful master of the Tower of Dawn, a structure with a history spanning over a thousand years, Diogres could wield magic with mana beyond what any ordinary human should be capable of holding.

Of course, Elezar could do the same if she had access to her own Platinum Tower. With its power behind her, she could cast spells on par with what Diogres had shown. Unfortunately, her tower was located far away, in the imperial capital of Thea Krahan. That was hundreds of kilometers from here.

”In that case...” Dreltein rose to his feet. ”Is it finally my turn to step in?”

”Wait.” Elezar stopped him. She gripped her staff, the Queen of Platinum, tightly in her hand. ”There’s something I need to do first.”

***

Diogres squinted with the Dawnshroud Staff raised. His vision was getting blurry due to his age, but he could still make out the general movements of the imperial army.

Are they pulling back? It was a relief. I’ll finally get a moment to rest. I was at my limit anyway.

Though he could draw immense mana from the Tower of Dawn, he was still a mortal man. No matter how efficiently he handled his mana, befitting a proper archmage, there was no way to avoid all side effects. He caught his breath after quietly ceasing the barrage of radiant spears.

I have to save enough strength to face those two.

The Tower of Dawn allowed him to cast spells far beyond what he could normally manage, but that didn’t mean he could conjure spells he didn’t already know. He could cast Baptism of Radiant Spears whether he had the tower or not.

The difference was that the tower allowed him to cast the same spell for longer, and more often. In the end, his only advantage now was stamina, and surely, his opponents knew that too.

They’ll definitely come at me together, aiming for a swift and decisive battle.

That was why Diogres needed to lean into the Tower of Dawn’s power and draw this into a war of attrition. If he could wear down Elezar’s focus and force her to retreat, his chances against Dreltein would significantly improve.

I can take her on as long as she’s away from the Platinum Tower.

Diogres blinked in confusion. ”Hm?”

He could see something strange in the distance, near the main camp of the imperial army. A massive tower-like structure was slowly making its way toward him. Anyone familiar with war would recognize it instantly.

”A siege tower?” he muttered.

It was one of those bulky structures used to scale enemy walls and send troops into fortified strongholds. Even so, there was something about it that struck Diogres as odd.

Why would they bring that here? The Tower of Dawn doesn’t even have walls.

What was the point of a siege engine meant for breaching obstacles when there were no obstacles to begin with?

Perhaps they were going to lean it against the exterior of the tower? Pointless. The Tower of Dawn wasn’t built like a fortress meant to be sieged. If Diogres’s magic broke down, that was the end, plain and simple.

So why...?

The siege tower drew closer, and Diogres’s expression grew increasingly bewildered.

Wait a minute...

The design of the tower was oddly... elegant. It was a strange word to use on the battlefield, but there was no other way to describe it. The tower’s design was pretty, with snow-white walls, and delicate platinum crest work. The entire structure looked more like a work of art than a war machine.

And that was when Diogres’s jaw dropped. ”The Platinum Tower?”

Those madmen in the imperial army had put wheels on Elezar’s magic tower and were dragging it onto the battlefield.

***

Leven and Serati both clicked their tongues in disbelief, watching the scene unfold.

”Good gods.”

”Is that even possible?”

Karnak shook his head. ”I’ll admit. I’m kind of impressed.”

Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t the actual Platinum Tower. It was a replica built by copying the original’s core structure and downsizing it into a mobile version.

”Still, doesn’t change the fact that it’s completely insane,” he continued.

The concept of a mobile magic tower wasn’t new. Karnak had heard of it before, and so had most mages. It was something passed around like a joke in arcane circles.

If a magic tower makes you stronger, why not just carry one around all the time? It had tactical merit. Some actual research had been done into it. But until now, no one had ever had the audacity—or the funding—to actually try it. Why?

”Because it costs just an unholy amount of money,” explained Karnak.

They hadn’t just built a fake tower. They had built another tower just like the real one. The cost and effort were practically the same as making an actual magic tower from scratch. And now they’d put wheels on it and were dragging it across the battlefield?

Karnak couldn’t even begin to imagine how much that would cost.

Even Diogres muttered something along the same lines in the footage. ”Did they drain the entire imperial treasury for this? I don’t understand. Elezar was never the type to act so irresponsibly.”

Still, there was no denying that it worked. As the replica tower drew closer, an enormous magical presence emanated from it. It seemed likely that it could reproduce up to 60% of the original Platinum Tower’s power.

”Or maybe close to one hundred percent, but only for a short period. Probably like a single day,” Karnak chimed in.

A battle against Diogres probably wouldn’t drag out for much longer than that. So that was most likely their plan.

Watching the footage, Karnak murmured to himself. ”With this, Elezar won’t be at a disadvantage against Diogres.”

Serati suddenly interjected, saying, ”Um, can I ask something?”

She tilted her head in confusion and pointed toward the projection. ”This video, it really shows what happened, right?”

”What do you mean by really?” Karnak responded.

”I mean Elezar and Diogres’s dialogue and all that,” Serati said.

Currently, Karnak’s group was watching Elezar, Diogres, and Dreltein as though observing them from right beside the battlefield.

She voiced her question. ”If those are actual words they said, how could we possibly know? Didn’t you say this was reconstructed from residual thoughts of dead soldiers?”

She hadn’t thought much of it while watching, but only now did it dawn on her just how absurd that was. ”They weren’t saying those things out loud for others to hear, were they? Are you saying necromancy can even pick up private mutterings said in solitude?”

Maloka shook her head. ”Of course not. Not even necromancy can do that.”

”Then how...?” Serati asked her.

”I edited it,” Maloka admitted.

Serati was baffled. ”Sorry?”

”I mean, I reconstructed what Elezar and Diogres likely said, to make the video easier for Lord Karnak to follow,” said Maloka.

Not only Serati but even Leven looked dumbfounded.

”Wait, hold on,” Leven said. ”So you don’t actually know if they said those things?”

Then what the hell were they watching here—some kind of dramatized reenactment? Wasn’t this just all Maloka’s imagination?

Maloka answered calmly, unfazed by their incredulous expressions. ”The general nuance is accurate. That much we verified through the lingering thoughts of the dead on the battlefield.”

There was a saying among necromancers.

—The dead are talkative.

Countless lives were lost on the battlefield, and the information that could be gathered through necromancy was far greater than magic. There were just that many spirits, and the residual thoughts of the dying were particularly vivid.

This video wasn’t fabricated so much as it was a well-polished report. It was merely formatted to be convenient for higher-ups to understand.

”Of course, if it had been a truly private conversation and they didn’t want to be overheard, not even necromancy could uncover it.”

Residual thoughts were not forcibly extracted. They were willingly left behind by the deceased.

Even ordinary people left barely anything behind if they were speaking in secrecy, let alone someone like an archmage.

”But in this case, neither of them seemed to care much about being overheard, did they? That’s why quite a lot of residual impressions were left behind,” Maloka concluded.

Indeed, both Elezar and Diogres had muttered aloud to themselves without a care, regardless of who was nearby.

Varos shrugged. ”Nothing to worry about. Lady Maloka’s really good at this sort of thing.”

The group turned their eyes back to the projection. As the distance between the two towers closed, Elezar appeared atop the replica tower. She appeared ready to begin her magical duel with Diogres in earnest.

”Good,” Karnak muttered, his expression full of anticipation. ”Now I’ll finally get a proper read on just how powerful the current Elezar really is.”