Swan had noticed something peculiar, and fired her shot at the base of the tower, instead of at Crow Mask. She had effectively thrown away the battle, as well as her life. All on a hunch. Crow Mask murmured.

“I can’t believe you broke through a wall of Blank?um.”

The tower was built out of Blank?um, considered the strongest metal. The value of the Blank?um used here alone amounted to an entire country’s annual budget.

This was an abnormal architectural decision no matter who looked at it. And that became the decisive root of the uneasy feeling that perverted Swan’s mind.

She didn’t think it was necessary to build an entire tower out of Blank?um simply to manufacture chimera, and then wondered what they actually built this for.

And the conclusion she reached: somewhere in this tower, something was hidden, and the entire tower was built out of Blank?um to hide it.

Swan’s reasoning was correct. But in the end, her sacrifice amounted to nothing. It was all for nothing if she could not share the truth that she uncovered.

‘I wish I could go down to check right now, but… ’

Of course, Crow Mask was also aware that the tower contained something far more elusive than a facility for manufacturing chimeras. And that purpose may be the reason why Skull Mask joined the Outsiders.

Even though Crow Mask worked with him day-in and day-out, he didn’t really know anything about him.

Swan’s actions were, as a result, indirectly helping him. “I’ll have to finish this up first.”

Crow Mask walked toward Swan, leaving behind his desire to grasp the purpose of Skull Mask.

With a light swipe of his hand, the debris piled up everywhere was pushed to the side. A moment later, he found Swan lying in tatters.

She was still breathing.

“Your struggle has been in vain.”

Swan’s breath was so uneven and forced that it threatened to give out at any moment. Not only were her injuries serious, they were also worsened by the excessive aura she gathered by burning her very life force.

[Gravity Control] “This is the end.”

As Crow Mask said that, he sensed a great deal of heat surging towards himself.

An unbelievably powerful wave of flame flooded the tower. Purified fire licked over every inch of his body and incinerated everything on the floor.

*Booom*

The fire storm abated and Crow Mask appeared a little away from where it passed. His cape crumbled apart into ashes, the sacrifice for his survival..

When he noticed a huge amount of mana moving, he hurriedly invoked space-movement magic, but he was just a little bit too late. He could only rely on using a spell he had pre-cast in Memorize. Only one spell remained in it now.

“What the hell was… ?”

Crow Mask muttered after finding himself subject to such an unexpected situation. He was able to find the uninvited guest, aiming his next spell at him.

Now that he thought about it, why did he ever question what that attack was? It was the one who had interfered with him many times. And a figure who shouldn’t have been able to make it this far. His detestable existence was now here, glaring at him with contempt.

“Desir Arman.”

“You can’t afford to lose here.”

As soon as Crow Mask returned to his senses at Desir’s voice, a terrible cold poured against him, contrary to the previous wave of heat.

Adjest, who had already invoked her imagery magic, now approached him. [Distraction Area]

Crow Mask hurriedly reached to block Adjest’s advance.

Desir invoked a spell, waiting for the gap to appear when Crow Mask responded to Adjest’s attack.

[Parie Arund]

Compressed air raged and buffeted Crow Mask.

The body of Crow Mask was bent backwards and buried under tower rubble.

* * *

The sword, coated in a bluish energy, sliced off the head of the masked man.

The man who neatly cut off the enemy’s neck, Letris, shook the blood off his sword.

Letris was one of the Side Guard who entered the tower with Swan. He was the squad leader for this mission.

The enemy had just been slain, but there was no time to rest. There were still more than a hundred enemies before his eyes.

On the other hand, the number of Side Guard present was a mere few dozen. Watching the constant influx of enemies, Letris breathed deeply without realizing it.

There was no sign of improvement in this battle. It was the Side Guard that was falling deeper and deeper into disadvantage over time.

*Crash*

He leaned back to avoid the flames flying towards him.

The overwhelming difference in numbers caused the Side Guards to gradually collapse. It no longer seemed possible to confront the Outsiders head-on.

‘Are we going to die like this?’

The sound of a shockwave reached their ears, and shortly afterwards, the tower rumbled and shook. They could no longer feel the dense ball of aura above them, and what that fact meant was all too clear to them.

Royal Guard Swan Katarina had been defeated. The morale of the Side Guard plummeted. ‘Was this just meaningless resistance now?’

From the moment the operation was discovered, they had been fighting a losing battle. At least Swan had a history of pushing ahead with operations doomed to fail, but now that she had lost, their odds were close to zero.

There was no way to reverse this situation.

By the time Letris returned to his senses, it was after the Side Guard, including himself, had already been backed into a corner. A wall composed of swords, spears, and spell arrays was aimed at them.

It was a brief lull in what had been an uninterrupted battle.

This was the end of the line for the Side Guard.

An Outsider gave the order.

“Leave only two or so alive.”

The rest moved in accordance with the order.

Letris grabbed his sword and tried to step forward to resist desperately. *Beep*

A loud warning sounded deafeningly. Everyone in the tower looked up at the noise. “What is it?”

Why does the warning sound, which was not heard in the midst of a fierce battle thus far, sound now? The question on everyone’s mind was soon solved.

A pale figure popped out of nowhere and snatched away the Outsider’s head. With a chilling sound, blood rose from his neck like a fountain, and the body soon fell to the floor.

Everyone was rooted to the spot. They looked up at the source of the attack without a single word and were able to recognize the outline of the figure before them.

They could make out the wings of a bat as well as the head of a lion. The thorns all over its body added a layer of disgust to the figure. “A chimera?”

The Outsiders muttered incredulously.

Inside the tower, there were many such chimeras that could do battle. One such chimera must have escaped.

It took a moment for the Outsiders to calm themselves and conceal their embarrassment. They calmly reaped the chimera’s last breath.

“Arghhhhhh!”

Terrible cries resounded from all sides. At the same time, the tower shook once again.

It was questionable how the closely monitored chimera escaped, but now was not the right time to focus on such trivialities.

The escaped chimera was not important right now. The Side Guard and Outsiders shouted at the same time.

“All units ready for battle!”

At that moment, the chimeras literally began to pour out like a waterfall.

The shapes of the chimeras were varied, but they had one thing in common. They attacked anyone they encountered, Outsider or not.

“Argh!”

The chimeras began to run wild.

There was no feeling that someone was in control of them. There was no reason behind the madness that were the chimeras. They had all been artificially created through experiments. If they were not under the tight control of someone, then they were no better than wild monsters. Blood and flesh splattered in all directions. The man who appeared to be the commander of Outsiders shouted in an urgent voice.

“Operate the control device!”

“It’s impossible! We can’t even access the control device!”

The current situation seemed to be unintentional, even for the Outsiders.

Letris cut off the leg of a chimera approaching him. The chimeras had gone wild and were attacking everyone indiscriminately.

Amongst the new found chaos, the advantage had subtly shifted in favor of the Side Guard. The Side Guard had been backed into a corner by the Outsiders, so the chimeras had to go through the Outsiders to face them.

The Side Guards were relatively comfortable in carry on with the battle.

It was a golden opportunity.

At the time when Letris was singing merrily inside, his communication pad rang. It was contact from Desir’s communication pad.

[-I’m a member of the Starling Party, Romantica. I’ll cover you from now on, so please focus on retreating while the Outsiders deal with the chimeras.]

Until now, communication had been disabled within the tower, yet the jamming spell had evidently disappeared at some point.

‘They inverted the jamming spell!’

A seemingly impossible chimera rampage as well as the restoration of vital communication equipment, which had been rendered useless until now.

Letris did not think that this series of events was accidental.

He assumed that they were all caused by Desir.