CHAPTER 180
We stepped inside the massive entrance of the Sky Castle.
There were four entrances in total, split across the north, south, east, and west.
Upon entering, we saw walls weathered by the wind and colossal structures.
They actually built something this massive and floated it?
I really had no idea what those Black Dawn bastards were thinking.

Following the path inward, I soon spotted some familiar figures.

"Harua, you're here."

It was Inferno and the Lord of Souls, Legolash, who had entered ahead of us.
Inferno was the overall frontline commander.
As such, he was observing the flow of the entire battlefield and issuing orders on the move.

"Yes. What's the situation?"
"Still in progress."

The Regular Army forces had already charged inside from all directions.
They were currently advancing through Black Dawn’s Sky Castle at breakneck speed.

"Inferno-nim, it's complete."
"Alright, project it."

At Inferno's command, Colonel Bagel, a mage of the Regular Army, deployed the magic he had just completed.
A map unfolded in the air like a hologram.
It was a live-updating map, drawing itself in real-time as the Regular Army pushed deeper into the Sky Castle.
The soldiers appeared as tiny dots, continuously pushing forward throughout the entire structure.

"Combat status?"
"It seems there haven't been any engagements yet."

Inferno stared intently at the map as he received the report.
The Regular Army had launched a surprise invasion, yet there was zero response from the enemy.
Rather than being caught off guard, it felt more like they didn't have a defense system in place at all.

However, aside from that, the sheer scale of the Sky Castle was vast.
In particular, the interior was structured like an incredibly complex maze, obvious even at a glance.
It was easily the size of a large town.
With a structure this massive and built like a labyrinth, it was going to take a long time just to find the right path.

"It's going to take a while to punch through this maze."
"Should we just smash the walls and push straight through?"
"No, hold off on that for now. There might be traps."

Inferno made a cautious judgment.
Meanwhile, I was also staring intently at the map.

‘Did they intentionally make it so we couldn't easily reach the center just to buy time?’

No, I couldn't believe they built this maze solely for that reason.
A maze, by definition, eventually has an end if you keep moving forward.
Rather than making the paths this convoluted, it would have been more effective to build an actual defense system.
The fact that there was only a maze sitting here was blatantly suspicious.

The enemy was Black Dawn.
There was definitely some hidden intention behind this maze too.
I took a step back and looked at the map as a whole while the Regular Army rapidly advanced.
The map continued to unfold.
As the complex shape of the maze was mapped out, its true contours slowly revealed themselves.

While Inferno was receiving various reports and giving orders, I stood there with my arms crossed, watching the map for a long time.

"Hmm?"

My eyes slowly widened.
Wait, could this be?
After pondering for a moment, I quickly called over an expert in this field.

"Babiyen."
"Yes?"
"Come here for a second."

I called Babiyen over and wrapped my arm around her shoulder.

"W-what are you trying to do in a situation like this?!"

Did this girl only have inappropriate thoughts in her head?
It seemed the adult Babiyen was only capable of thinking in that direction now.
But this wasn't the time to play along with her, so I stepped back so she could see the map at a glance.

"Look at the map from here."

Babiyen followed my gaze and looked at the hologram.
She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head.

"It's a maze."
"Yeah, it's a maze, but it's drawing a symmetrical circular pattern."
"That's..."

Babiyen started to ask back, but her eyes slowly widened.
She quickly turned her head back to the map.

"...U-uh, wait, could this be a magic circle?"

As expected, Babiyen reached the exact same conclusion.

"A magic circle?"

Hearing my theory belatedly, Inferno turned to look at Colonel Bagel.
Colonel Bagel hurriedly looked up at the map as well.
The Regular Army was navigating the complex maze along a massive circular path from every direction.
As a result, the map was gradually filling in the maze from the outside in, slowly drawing the shape of something.

Meanwhile, Babiyen stepped closer to the map and examined it carefully.
She traced the edges with her fingertips, seemingly estimating its complete form.
Soon, she turned back to me with a grim expression.

"Harua, this is definitely a magic circle."

The entire Sky Castle was constructed as one gigantic magic circle.

Over the past period, Babiyen had received magical training from not only the Red Flame Lord but also Iox. Now, an average mage wouldn't even dare hand her their business card.
If Babiyen said it was a magic circle, then it was a fact.

"Ah, a magic circle... I believe it is indeed a magic circle."

The same conclusion came back from Colonel Bagel.
The moment Inferno heard that, he clicked his tongue.

"These absolute lunatics."

Just as he said, everything those Black Dawn bastards did was on a completely different fucking scale.

"Babiyen, can you decipher it?"

A magic circle was ultimately drawn to activate a specific spell.
If so, there had to be a clear intent behind it.

"Not yet. There are too many unrevealed parts on the map."

But even for Babiyen, it was impossible to guess the whole picture from just a fragment.

"However, if we're talking about their intention for drawing a magic circle, we already know what it's going to be used for."

I clicked my tongue because I knew it too.

"...An Artificial Transcendent."

A magic circle to complete an Artificial Transcendent.
Even if we didn't know exactly how this magic circle was being used, the ultimate goal was already set in stone.

"I need to check the path. Please wait a moment. Will you help me?"
"Yes, I will assist you."

Colonel Bagel immediately moved to follow Babiyen.
Keeping the possibility that it really was a magic circle in mind, the two of them began digging up the floor here and there.
Every time her magic flared, the floor bricks were ripped out and lifted.

"It should definitely be around here."
"Judging by the pattern of the magic circle, this spot should be correct."

After digging around for quite a while, both of them shouted.

"Found it!"
"I found it!"

In front of the spot where the floor bricks had been pulled out.
There lay a thin, circuit-like path.
And covering that circuit was a thick layer of pure white sand I had never seen before.
What was more bizarre was that I could feel holy power radiating from that pristine white sand.

"This is..."
"It's the Sand of the Dead Sea," Aigis, who had been watching from the side, quietly informed us.
"In the ancient past, a group that worshipped the Transcendents was annihilated all at once. They turned into massive amounts of sand beneath the deep ocean, which came to be known as the Sand of the Dead Sea."

Since it involved the Transcendents, Aigis recognized it immediately and explained.
So this was another one of the things Black Dawn had gathered while causing terrorist attacks all over the world.

"Harua, it's definitely a magic circle. They used the Sand of the Dead Sea as the reagent."

Babiyen firmly concluded that it was a magic circle.
The layout of the corridors forming the Sky Castle was the magic circle itself.
And the Sand of the Dead Sea laid beneath it was the reagent meant to execute the spell.

"What on earth were they thinking, making a magic circle of this scale...?"

Even Babiyen, a fellow mage, looked appalled by the sheer size of it.
As her reaction suggested, it was an act of pure insanity.

"Has the magic circle been activated yet?"
"It has already been activated for a long time," Colonel Bagel answered Inferno's question instead.
"If it hadn't been activated yet, we would have felt the presence of mana. But right now, we can't feel anything at all. Rather..."

Babiyen picked up where he left off, slowly standing up and pressing her hand against the corridor wall.

"...It feels like the power to this entire castle was turned off a while ago. Like an empty shell."
"An eggshell."

Aranseol chimed in, continuing Babiyen's thought.
With her eyes slightly narrowed, she was gazing deeply into the interior of the Sky Castle.
She looked as if she was sensing something.

"It feels like a leftover eggshell after something has already hatched."

Aranseol had crossed the line of life and death countless times through Danmyung.
Her sharp intuition had reached a realm entirely different from ordinary people.
An eggshell left behind after something hatched.
If that was the shell left behind after the Artificial Transcendent had revived, this was the worst-case scenario.

‘No, not yet.’

However, I could confidently deny the completion of the Artificial Transcendent.
I was the person in this world who had contained the most of a Transcendent's power within my own body.
The power of a Transcendent was flowing directly into my very soul.
While I might feel a strange, eerie dread, if an entity like an Artificial Transcendent had truly been born, I would have felt it immediately.
That overwhelming cosmic power a Transcendent possessed.
It wasn't something you could hide just because you wanted to.

I didn't feel any such presence in the Sky Castle.
Only an inexplicable, creepy sensation kept gnawing at my nerves.

‘Besides, if the Transcendent was already complete...’

Black Dawn would have no reason to hide anymore.
The only thing capable of stopping a Transcendent was another Transcendent.
It would simply become their world.
Then what was the reason for building the Sky Castle?
That aligned with the theory we had come up with earlier.

Reincarnation to become the vessel of a Transcendent.
The possibility that they built the Sky Castle for that single purpose.
The souls of the Deadly Sins that the Lord of Souls had tracked were all connected to this place.
Which meant...

‘This is our chance.’

The chance to smash the soul vessel of the Artificial Transcendent.
We couldn't afford to miss this opportunity.

"Inferno-nim."
"Yeah, looking at the situation, this isn't the time to worry about walls collapsing or whatever."

The enemy had surely noticed our intrusion by now.
We didn't have the luxury of time to get bogged down in a maze.

"Legolash, point us in the direction where you feel the souls."
"It's this way."

Legolash pointed the way, as if he had expected this.
Inferno raised his fist and looked back at Colonel Bagel.

"From now on, we're punching a straight line straight to the center."
"I'll support the structure so it doesn't collapse."

Inferno had refrained from breaking through earlier, but he decided to prioritize speed.
Without hesitation, Inferno threw a punch forward.

KWA-BOOM!

With a massive explosion, the wall was blown entirely away.
It was the sheer power of Inferno's Ability.
However, the debris from the wall didn't scatter; instead, it clumped together to form a stable tunnel.
It was Colonel Bagel's magic.
An Earth-attribute mage, huh?
There was a good reason Inferno kept him by his side.

"Harua, I'm heading to the absolute vanguard. What about you?"

Inferno asked as he raised his fist for the next strike.
By the looks of it, he planned to charge forward without holding back.
A Lieutenant General of the Regular Army and a Rank 2 Earth mage.
Two Lords and Aranseol, who was at the level of a Lord herself.
Add Babiyen, Lululio, and me to the mix, and we were the absolute highest fighting force in this entire war.
The decision had been made a long time ago.

"Let's go."

We charged straight into the heart of the Sky Castle.