It was the very same barrier I had seen around Shamara in Soph’s memories, but getting inside it wasn’t difficult.
I passed through the shield and entered the tower.
Hanna’s presence could be felt above.
I climbed the damaged stairs to the upper floor, where Hanna was standing before a half-destroyed wall.
She stood there, gazing at the sacred mountain in the center of the basin.
“You’ve truly been through so much.”
Seeing me come up, Hanna spoke with a worried expression.
Judging by the way her eyes kept moving between my arm and my side, she seemed to have noticed that I had been injured.
She shouldn’t have been able to see it from here.
This, too, seemed to be part of a prophet’s power.
Thanks to the healing magic I had kept running until now, not even a visible wound remained, but in the end, she had found me out.
“Even if there aren’t any wounds, your clothes are all torn. Anyone could tell you were injured just by looking.”
At Hanna’s sighing words, I had no choice but to scratch my head.
I stood beside Hanna and looked over the area around the sanctuary through the gaping hole in the wall.
There was some distance between the tower and the sanctuary at the center of the basin, but from here I could see all the monsters around it.
The dust cloud I had raised was settling, and the monsters that had been fighting me were scattering in every direction to search for me.
There was no time to wait.
“Will this shield hold?”
“Yes. It can block it sufficiently.”
Hanna answered confidently.
The shield covering the tower looked as though it could stop any danger, just as she said, but I made an additional request of Soph.
[Please handle the barrier.]
[Severance, obstruction, reinforcement.]
With a short incantation, another shield formed around Hanna and me. Since it even used the black stone of the spear, it looked extremely sturdy.
This much was enough.
I spoke to Soph again.
[Soph, please detonate it.]
Soph did not cast the spell right away and instead asked me.
[You should be capable of creating the detonation signal yourself, shouldn’t you?]
At the sudden question, I had to tilt my head.
[I can make the same thing, but I can’t transmit it that far.]
Just as Soph said, I could also reproduce the detonation signal the North Korean Chairman had sent using magic.
Of course, I did not understand magic theoretically like Soph or other mages did.
However, I could create changes in magic to a certain extent by using my senses.
Just as I could modify electric magic to create a radio signal, I could also realize the detonation signal in magic the same way.
For me, who had only ever been able to copy identical things, it was a tremendous development, but applying it in actual combat was a completely different matter.
In order to use magic, I had to rely on the gloves on my hands.
In the end, that meant I was limited to close-range magic, magic transmitted through a medium, earth magic, or electric shock magic.
Soph knew that, and yet he said something like this.
I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
[Is that so? If that is what you think, then it cannot be helped. Very well. I will do it.]
After saying something I couldn’t quite understand, Soph began a countdown.
[10, 9, 8……]
A mage doing a countdown. It seemed that after coming to Earth, he had watched too much internet and too many movies.
[4, 3, 2……]
As Soph’s countdown raced toward zero, I raised my hand and covered Hanna’s eyes.
[Zero.]
The countdown ended, and Soph’s magic was cast.
A magic circle unfolded at the tip of the spear.
It was not a large or splendid magic circle, but it was intricate enough to inspire admiration.
A new magic circle that only an archmage well versed in electric magic could create.
The moment the magic circle unfolded, I squeezed my eyes shut.
But nothing changed in the world.
[It seems it does not explode immediately after all.]
As Soph said, it was something we had expected.
They would not have designed the missiles to explode the instant they received the self-destruct signal.
A small amount of time would be necessary.
I decided to wait for a moment.
…….
Time passed.
The dust had completely settled, and the monsters were gradually widening the distance.
“It’s taking too long…….”
More time was passing than I had expected.
I had not thought it would take this long.
Something was wrong.
The mummies or monster fossils left underground might have tampered with the bombs, or the self-destruct device might have broken.
It seemed I would have to check.
I lowered the hand covering Hanna’s eyes and was about to jump outside.
Before I could, Hanna grabbed my hand.
“It’s all right. There’s nothing wrong with the bombs. If you wait just a little, they’ll explode. Right… now!”
The instant her words ended, the earth heaved and overturned the center of the basin.
Flash!
I closed my eyes, but a blinding burst of light filled my vision.
The white light I had seen whenever crossing space was nothing compared to this flash.
The light I had not seen on Earth because I had been fleeing shook the air, and the tremendous heat created an enormous shock wave.
Kwaaaaang!
With an explosion that shook the world, a huge mushroom cloud surged upward.
Perhaps because of the defensive wall surrounding the sanctuary, the cloud was slightly distorted, but its size was far larger than what I had seen on Earth.asdf
Since two nuclear bombs had detonated at the same time, it was only natural.
Along with the mushroom cloud, dust, debris, and countless fragments of monsters shot into the sky.
Kwagwagwagwa!
The aftermath of the explosion swept across the entire basin and surged all the way to the tower.
Kwajijik!
Debris, dirt, and the pressure of the explosion crushed down on the shield Hanna had created.
A bizarre sound came from the shield.
It sounded as if it might shatter if anything went wrong.
Had the shield not been there, not only Hanna and I, but the tower itself would likely have been disintegrated by the impact.
As Hanna had said, the barrier she made withstood the pressure of the explosion.
The mushroom cloud rapidly spread across the sky, casting a shadow over the ground.
A massive crater had formed where the nuclear bombs had exploded.
Most of the monsters gathered there could not be seen at all.
The monsters far from the crater appeared fine on the outside, but since they could not move, their insides seemed to have been destroyed.
“So they really are weak…….”
However, I frowned as I looked at the scene of the explosion.
Because there were still monsters moving inside the crater.
Not only the defensive monsters whose shells had half melted, but all four control entities were still moving.
More than half their tentacles had been severed, and they could not move as they had before, but the control entities had survived even after taking a direct hit from a nuclear explosion.
I had expected it to some extent, but confirming it with my own eyes left a bitter taste.
Two nuclear bombs had not even been enough to kill the control entities.
It would be impossible to kill the Demon King with the same nuclear bombs.
[This is troublesome. In the end, is magic the only answer?]
As Soph said, if nuclear weapons would not work, there was nothing but magic.
But I shook my head.
Unlike Soph, who was a mage, I was a soldier of Earth.
Earth’s weapons did not end with North Korea’s nuclear missiles.
With that thought in mind, I said to Hanna,
“Keep the barrier up and wait for a while.”
Obtaining a new weapon was not urgent right this second.
There was something I had to do first.
“Yes. I’ll wait.”
Hanna nodded.
After hearing her answer, I cast purification magic on my body and jumped out of the tower.
Once I passed beyond the defensive wall covering the tower, I felt heat on my body.
It was heat weakened thanks to the shield Soph had deployed, but even with my strengthened body, it felt hot.
[Colder, let the air flow.]
Soph immediately cast cold magic and air magic.
The temperature dropped further to a level I could endure.
I began running toward the crater.
Using spatial transfer right now was difficult. Perhaps because of the aftermath of the nuclear explosion, the surrounding space was unstable.
Still, there was no need to worry.
Half the monsters in the basin had been swept up in the explosion, and the remaining monsters, perhaps due to the shock of the nuclear bombs, could not approach the crater.
I only had to arrive before the control entities inside the crater regained their senses.
“It’s a relief we have purification magic. I might not even have been able to get close.”
[To create a planet where humans can live means that as much as one must generate what humans require, one must also remove what is unnecessary. That is purification magic, and it is only natural that purification magic removes radiation.]
While I ran toward the crater, the purification magic removed the radiation around me in real time.
Magic that removed radiation.
If it could be installed on Earth, it would be the kind of magic that would bring in a windfall, but unfortunately, I was the only one who could use it on Earth.
Of course, with Earth facing destruction now, installing it would be meaningless, but even so, it was still a great shame.
Purifying the radiation like that, I entered the crater.
The first things I saw were defensive monsters writhing their massive bodies.
Their shells had melted by more than half, exposing their flesh and even their black stones, but I ignored them and kept running.
My target was not the defensive monsters.
After passing the defensive monsters, I saw the control entities.
Control entities whose pillar-thick tentacles had melted away.
Perhaps they had deployed shields to block the explosion, because their bodies looked in better condition than the defensive monsters.
However, the control entities were just as dazed.
Then again, there was no way the monsters had ever been hit by such a powerful attack before.
[My magic can produce similar power.]
Soph grumbled inside my head, but now was not the time to answer him.
I had to extract the black stones before the control entities regained their senses.
The reason I had detonated the nuclear bombs here was to confirm the power of a nuclear explosion and to obtain black stones.
Unfortunately, the nuclear explosion had been too powerful, making it difficult to collect black stones from the other monsters.
They had either all melted or been blown away by the blast.
The remaining black stones belonged to the defensive monsters and the control entities here.
Was it because of the radiation?
The monsters’ recovery was slower than before.
Their tentacles grew slowly, and even the control entities were struggling to regain their senses.
I wanted to observe a bit more to see what was going on, but unfortunately, I could not.
Their recovery was slow, but it had not stopped entirely.
The tentacles were gradually increasing, and the monsters were trying to come to their senses.
If more time passed, they would likely be able to use magic as well.
Once they began using magic, I would have to fight the monsters properly.
Four control entities.
That would be difficult even to win against.
A bigger problem was that the monsters that had retreated were now approaching this way.
The monsters unable to use magic did not come closer, but the control entities and magic-using monsters had deployed shields and were rapidly approaching.
I had to extract the black stones before they arrived.
I drew my spear and charged at the control entities.
***
The last monster was not easy, but in the end, I managed to extract all four black stones from the control entities before the other monsters came crashing in.
After extracting the black stones, I promptly fled.
I ran quickly, returned to the tower, then took Hanna and descended into the tower’s basement.
Soph immediately activated the spatial transfer device.
As I watched the portal form above the altar, I clicked my tongue quietly.
“I don’t know if this tower will be all right.”
The test had gone well, and I had obtained the black stones, but it seemed unlikely that this tower would remain intact.
The monsters were not beasts.
They possessed intelligence as outstanding as humans, and on top of that, there was the Demon King.
The surviving monsters would surely search everywhere.
At my words, Hanna shook her head.
“The tower will be fine. It is a place that contains the power of the previous prophet.”
So that was why the tower had remained safe.
If the tower would be fine, that was a relief.
With a satisfied expression, I entered the portal together with Hanna.
Unfortunately, I had not properly understood Hanna’s words.
Just as Hanna had said, the monsters did not touch the tower.
Nor did the surviving monsters pound on the shield surrounding the sanctuary.
Instead, the monsters spread out beyond the basin.
From the control entities to the fossil monsters and the mummies.
All the monsters that had received the Demon King’s command began moving in search of the mage who had attacked them.
The Lake Base