"Recreate... that great ceremony?"
Upon hearing Riezel’s explanation, Riveria muttered with a look of disbelief, and the others were no different, each showing either disbelief or shock.
"Are you really sure, Riezel?"
Riveria asked for confirmation, her expression extremely grim.
"I’m sure..."
Riezel nodded and replied calmly.
"After Thanatos was sent back and before the green flesh appeared, I heard singing. It should have been the six Demi Spirits chanting the chant for the Gate of Heaven."
"And the green flesh appeared in order to absorb nutrients and magical energy, which will be used to cast the Gate of Heaven."
"Once the six Demi Spirits absorb enough magical energy and finish chanting the chant of the Gate of Heaven, the light from Heaven will descend, and Orario will be destroyed."
After hearing this, everyone’s expressions gradually grew solemn.
"Chanting... So that ceremony is magic? But like, does magic that can straight-up wipe out an entire city actually exist in this world?"
Bete raised his usual doubt, but his tone was not as harsh as usual. Instead, it was unexpectedly calm, as if he were suppressing the agitation in his heart.
"Yeah, it’s basically magic," Riezel answered with a shrug. "And if you ask whether such magic exists, then my answer is yes—it definitely does."
Magic capable of destroying a city was something he himself possessed.
More specifically, it was the kind of magic that had been evaluated as Strategic-Class Magic in the Akasha Continent.
As long as he recovered his true strength as Level 8 and activated Morgan’s Ring, the current him would certainly be able to use Strategic-Class Magic. In fact, he even possessed magic above the Strategic-Class—Rhongomyniad.
Needless to say, the Gate of Heaven was a magic that could be considered Strategic-Class Magic.
"In fact, you only need to calculate it carefully to understand."
Riezel considered his words before explaining to everyone.
"Nidhogg was a King of Monsters capable of rivaling One-Eyed Black Dragon."
"And One-Eyed Black Dragon once completely defeated the Zeus familia, which had a Level 8 member, and the Hera Familia, which had a Level 9 member, causing the two thousand-year familias to decline."
"Now, defeating that dragon has become the wish of the entire world, and there is currently no possibility of achieving it."
"However, in ancient times, Nidhogg, which could rival One-Eyed Black Dragon, was defeated by merely six spirits using a single great magic."
"In other words, if that great magic could be recreated, even One-Eyed Black Dragon might be defeated, thereby fulfilling the wish of the entire world."
Riezel raised a finger.
"A magic this powerful—do you really believe it wouldn’t have the power to destroy a city?"
Upon hearing this, everyone’s breathing stalled slightly.
One-Eyed Black Dragon was the final target of the Three Great Quests, and its existence was like the Sword of Damocles constantly hanging above the heads of mortals in the Lower World, threatening the entire world at all times. People even believed that once it awakened, the Lower World would fall back into chaos, and the end of days would arrive.
In other words, the black dragon threatened not just a single city, but the entire Lower World.
A great magic capable of defeating such a monster would naturally possess extraordinary power. Now that Riezel had laid it out this way, everyone began to feel the reality of the situation—the reality that Orario could be destroyed!
"T-Then isn’t the situation really bad right now?!"
Raul immediately panicked, and everyone else also began breathing more heavily.
A great magic capable of destroying a city was currently being chanted by the enemy, and once the magic was completed, Orario would be finished. Thinking of this, everyone suddenly felt the urge to rush back to the Man-Made Dungeon Knossos.
As everyone began to panic, only Finn remained calm.
"No wonder my thumb has kept throbbing even after leaving the Man-Made Dungeon... So destruction has been approaching us step by step..." Finn bit his thumb and remarked. "But a whole night has passed, and the enemy’s great magic still hasn’t been completed. Does that mean this magic isn’t so easy to cast?"
As expected of the captain of the familia, he immediately noticed the key point.
Riezel sighed inwardly in admiration and nodded.
"Yeah, the magic is a ceremony that required the sacrifice of six great spirits in ancient times to complete. And the Corrupted Spirit merely used a trick to gather six of her avatars to activate the ceremony, so it definitely can’t be released that easily."
Riezel raised two fingers.
"To activate such powerful magic, there are two conditions that cannot be avoided."
"First: enormous magical energy."
"Second: a complicated chant."
"To destroy Orario, the magical energy of a few avatars alone would definitely be insufficient, which is why the green flesh was released—to devour all life within the Man-Made Dungeon and extract magical energy from them. As long as the magical energy hasn’t been fully gathered, the magic cannot be activated."
"And the chant for the Gate of Heaven must far exceed even the length of a super-long chant, so completing such a long chant also requires time."
It went without saying that the Gate of Heaven was similar to Strategic-Class Magic on the Akasha Continent—successfully activating it absolutely required complicated conditions and preparation.
From that perspective, Riezel himself was somewhat of an exception, given that his Strategic-Class Magic was essentially created by strengthening magic on the scale of Tactical-Class before releasing it, thereby reaching the power of Strategic-Class Magic.
For example, the magic that once injured the Underground Demon Beast Yarakulon, Rea Laevateinn, worked exactly like this. If nothing else, just looking at the chant alone, it consisted of only a few segments, far shorter than ordinary Strategic-Class Magic.
Rhongomyniad worked similarly as well, since it did not even require a chant and only required summoning the end of the world and calling forth the anchor of the planet, which needed sufficient activation time.
It could be said that no magician or mage could activate Strategic-Class or above magic as easily as Riezel. If this situation were exposed on the Akasha Continent, he would probably become a thorn in the side of every nation.
Meanwhile, the Gate of Heaven that the Corrupted Spirit was preparing to cast was even more troublesome to activate than ordinary Strategic-Class Magic. Not only did it require gathering six spirits, but it also required sacrificing their lives. Even then, insufficient magical energy would still prevent its activation, and the chant itself was absurdly long. Its activation conditions were so harsh that even in the Akasha Continent, it would be considered exceptional.
However, in this world, excluding the omnipotent divine power of the various gods, the Gate of Heaven could already be regarded as top-tier magic—its sheer intimidating presence was enough to make anyone uneasy.
Standing from his own perspective, Riezel gave everyone a precise explanation.
"Right now, the enemy has already absorbed the magical energy of Evilus’s remnant members and the colorful monsters within the Man-Made Dungeon, but they still haven’t gathered enough magical energy to activate the ceremony, so even if the chant is completed, they still won’t be able to activate the Gate of Heaven."
"In this situation, the six Demi Spirits should be desperately trying to gather magical energy by any means possible, which is also why the green flesh attacks anyone who approaches after emerging from the Man-Made Dungeon."
"As long as no one approaches the green flesh and gets devoured by it, the Demi Spirits can probably only absorb magical energy from the surrounding atmosphere, which is extremely inefficient."
"In summary, we don’t need to worry too much about the Gate of Heaven right now, because we still have time."
We still have time!
Upon hearing this, everyone finally let out a sigh of relief.
"What do you think, Riezel?" Gareth asked seriously. "From your view, how much longer do you think the enemy’s gonna need to finish that ceremony, the Gate of Heaven?"
"Before I came back, I sensed the speed at which the six Demi Spirits are absorbing magical energy," Riezel replied with considerable certainty. "By a conservative estimate, they will need at least two more days to gather enough magical energy. If I use some methods to interfere, that time could be extended several times over, or even more than ten times."
Upon hearing this, Riveria, who had been listening to Riezel’s explanation the entire time, could not help but ask a question.
"You can interfere with the ceremony?"
Riveria still felt somewhat incredulous when she asked this.
As Orario’s strongest mage, her understanding of magic could be said to far surpass that of ordinary people. Yet she not only knew nothing about the Gate of Heaven, but she also could not speak about it as clearly and confidently as Riezel did, which alone had already made her marvel at his current level of magical knowledge.
Now Riezel was even saying that he could interfere with a great ceremony powerful enough to cause destruction to a major city, which made Riveria even more astonished. At the very least, she certainly could not do it.
Unfortunately, Riezel was no longer the person he once was.
"If you ask whether it can be done, my answer is yes," Riezel said firmly. "But I can only interfere. I can’t stop it."
Truthfully, this was also the part that surprised Riezel himself.
Back then, when he first learned that the enemy was preparing to activate the Gate of Heaven, he had actually planned to stop it.
One should remember that Riezel possessed Magic Destruction, which could dispel an enemy’s magic, as well as the ultimate counter-magic, Sacrament - Wheel Mirror, which could reflect enemy magic.
In theory, stopping the Gate of Heaven should have been possible, but after actually attempting it, Riezel discovered that he had underestimated this great magic.
First, he had no way to dispel the Gate of Heaven while it was being activated, mainly because Magic Destruction could only dispel magic that did not exceed the caster’s own magical ability.
As a Strategic-Class Magic, the Gate of Heaven was already extremely close to the limit of his own magical ability, so he could not dispel it using Magic Destruction.
Secondly, the ultimate counter magic, Sacrament - Wheel Mirror, could not reflect a Strategic-Class Magic with an attack range that was too large, and it could only reflect Tactical-Class and below magic, so Strategic-Class Magic already exceeded the capacity that the magic mirror could absorb.
Unfortunately, the same was true for his other magic, all of which ultimately failed to activate successfully.
At that point, Riezel remembered something.
Even though he had once criticized the Gate of Heaven for having extremely harsh activation conditions, it actually had a troublesome trait: once it was activated, unless all six spirits who activated it were killed, the activation could not be nullified.
Meanwhile, the six Demi Spirits had already been connected together through the magic circle of the ceremony, so even if one of them were killed, that Demi Spirit would quickly revive.
In that case, if Riezel wanted to completely stop the activation of the Gate of Heaven, there were only two methods left.
First: use magic of the same level to clash against it at the moment the Gate of Heaven was activated.
Second: before the Gate of Heaven was activated, launch a Strategic-Class Magic first and destroy the six Demi Spirits inside Knossos at the same time.
However, both methods would ultimately still cause Orario to suffer great damage or even direct destruction. If he did that, the enemy might laugh themselves awake from their dreams.
’Since that magic is a great ceremony that can kill something like One-Eyed Black Dragon—a monster even the Zeus familia and the Hera Familia couldn’t take down, even after teaming up—it’s no surprise that it’s impossible to stop. I’m only Level 8 right now, so of course I can’t shut down a magic that can kill that dragon.’
’But stopping it and messing with it are two totally different things.’
’With where I’m at right now, messing with some Strategic-Class Magic is pretty much effortless.’
In the end, with this thought in mind, Riezel spoke his plan to his companions.
"I’ll find a time to return to Daedalus Street and interfere with the activation of the Gate of Heaven, buying as much time for everyone as possible."
"All of you just need to make full preparations before then."
"Prepare to reconquer the Man-Made Dungeon Knossos, subjugate the six Demi Spirits, and destroy Enyo’s plan."
After Riezel spoke with such certainty, everyone looked at each other, exchanging glances, before ultimately nodding in agreement.
"Reconquering the Man-Made Dungeon is something that must be done no matter what."
Finn continued after Riezel, addressing everyone.
"Since Riezel has a way to interfere with that great magic, we’ll leave that side to him for now."
"Before that, I’ll refine the strategy for the next Man-Made Dungeon operation as much as possible."
"From now on, this is no longer just a matter of our familia, so we’ll need cooperation from all factions in Orario that are aware of this."
Given that the enemy was essentially the Man-Made Dungeon Knossos, which had become a living, flesh-like fortress, and that the Loki Familia alone could not even open a path to reach the 10th Floor, where the six Demi Spirits were located, they needed manpower, a great deal of manpower.
Furthermore, the Demi Spirits also had to be eliminated, and they had to be dealt with simultaneously. Unfortunately, the Loki Familia would find it difficult even to defeat one of them, let alone split into six groups to handle all six.
Needless to say, the difficulty was extremely great.
On top of that, Enyo was also still moving in the shadows, and no one had even seen the person in question yet, making this another matter that demanded caution.
Enyo was too much of a mystery.
If they continued to ignore Enyo and let them act freely, the outcome would definitely be disastrous.
"As for the specific strategy, I’ll discuss it with Loki, Gareth, and Riveria before informing everyone."
"During this time, all of you should also rest properly and adjust your condition so that you can move out at any time."
"During this period, you may be dispatched at any moment for the next Man-Made Dungeon operation."
"So be prepared. Get proper rest, and don’t exhaust yourselves."
Only after giving these instructions did Finn dismiss the meeting.
Everyone stood up one after another and left the office in order, leaving only Finn, Riveria, and Gareth behind to continue discussing various matters.
Watching this scene, a thought could not help but arise in Riezel’s mind.
’If it really comes to that, I’ll have to go all out, huh...’
With this thought in mind, Riezel finally left the office.
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[A bonus Chapter for every 300 Power Stones.]
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