"Yes! I have thought it through clearly — I cannot simply watch the family be destroyed in the fires of war!"
Ivanov declared firmly, his face bearing an almost saintly expression.
"Excellent! The enemies we are targeting are only those evil Blood Warlocks. Those of you who have come to your senses in time are still part of us Wizards!"
A voice came through from the other side of the Secret Arcane Mark.
"Of course! It is my honor!" Ivanov said excitedly.
Then, somewhat uneasily, he asked, "Is this communication channel secure? The headquarters of the Ouroboros Ring has extremely rigorous isolation and eavesdropping countermeasures!"
"Haha… don't worry! This is a specially encrypted channel! Our conversation absolutely cannot leak out!"
"Then fine — what do you need me to do!" Now that he had already decided to betray them, Ivanov was quite straightforward about it.
"Simple. You just need to…"
The voice grew lower and lower, and Ivanov nodded continuously.
The dim lamplight gradually flickered out, and darkness shrouded everything.
……
Attacks always came when least expected.
By the time the sorcerers, already accustomed to martial law, realized that the entire city had been surrounded by a forest of man-eating plant growths, many of them actually felt a measure of relief.
Compared to the constant anxiety and unease before, a visible enemy was far more reassuring. What lay ahead was simply a great battle — the victors would survive, and the defeated would be utterly destroyed. Nothing more.
Compared to such a battle, the suffocating wait beforehand had been far more mentally devastating.
But the sorcerers' moment of relief lasted only an instant. When they saw the massive airship fleet pressing in across the sky like a blanket of dark clouds, even Faisal felt that all his previous jockeying for power had become something of a joke!
"Battle stations!"
He screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice carrying a tremor.
"Wizard Tower authorization complete! Core defense system constructed!"
Compared to him, those sorcerers who had specific orders could at least carry out their work methodically.
Hum! A Wizard Tower trembled as numerous runes surfaced from the tower's exterior and shot into the air.
Every Wizard Tower within the city was in the same state. Countless runes formed beams of light that converged at the city's center, coalescing into a brilliant sun.
A curtain of water cascaded outward from the sun in all directions, its surface shimmering with a crystalline luster, enveloping the entire city within.
"A terrifying wizard formation — this has at least fifty or sixty elemental pools and reactors channeled together!"
At the center of the flower sea, a green-haired Wizard sneered: "What a pity. The enemy is too hasty. We barely even frightened them, and they've already been forced to reveal a trump card!"
"Indeed!" Another female Wizard in red giggled behind her hand as well. "If the sorcerers of the Ouroboros Ring are all like this, we've already won this battle!"
"In truth, as long as the three elders of the opposing side haven't returned, the outcome of this battle won't change in the slightest — it's merely a matter of how long it takes!"
The green-haired Wizard corrected. As a high-ranking commander of the legion, he had access to far more intelligence than ordinary Wizards — he already knew about the news of Gilbert and the other two having disappeared together.
"So what do we need to do now... a probing attack?" The female Wizard bit her lip, looking rather playful.
"We don't even need to probe. Other organizations are already handling it for us!"
Before her, the male Wizard looked supremely confident, announcing this with a touch of smugness.
"The Hand of Vengeance, I assume?" The female Wizard nodded, then giggled and stretched luxuriously. "Since someone else is already doing the dirty work for us, shouldn't we take this chance to do something else..."
Her voice was sweet and cloying, surpassing even the finest honey, and the male Wizard couldn't help but become intoxicated by it.
Faintly, the sound of their hushed conversation continued to drift over: "Are those Wizards reliable?"
"They're just pawns to be discarded — we'll definitely abandon them when the time comes anyway. Why worry about it?"
"I'm still a little uneasy about them..."
"At worst, I'll hand command of the Shadow Guard over to you, and you can keep an eye on them for me..."