Strength 99999 but the Holy Sister

Aisha suddenly asked, Hannah nodded and gave a brief explanation of the current progress of the investigation.

"Our people are already investigating and collecting evidence. We currently suspect someone tampered with the base's defensive formation. The magic crystals embedded in the defensive formation weren't supplying enough energy to the formation, but instead became the source of energy for the explosive magic. As a result, the explosive magic's power was greatly enhanced, while the defensive formation became useless. Otherwise, the defensive formation underground at the Magician Corps' base could at least guarantee the safety of the personnel in the building."

In the early days of the fortress's construction, the stationed General Hibern, Sir Hibern's father, insisted that solid walls and buildings were the most important shield against the Demon King's army. In order to build an indestructible fortress, he invited Tricia to use the earth vein sealing technique to lay a huge and solid foundation for the fortress.

The city is hollowed out underneath.

The city seen on the surface is actually just a group of buildings piled on a huge magic circle. The magic circle below is the most essential and core area of ​​this city. Including the city’s air defense magic circle, city wall reinforcement magic circle and other powerful city-based magic circles, they are all part of the underground magic circle group.

"In other words, that necromancer can even access the underground magic circle...his identity must be very powerful, right?"

Elsa felt from the bottom of her heart that this matter would be difficult to resolve slowly - the fact that someone could access the magic circle already showed his status, or at least that he was a person of high status.

"Yes, we think so too. That's why I sent people to re-examine all the senior personnel who had dealings with the Magician Corps, both internal and external. Unfortunately, one of them has escaped. It is said that he left the Corps headquarters yesterday. No one knows where he went. I don't know if this missing person is the necromancer we are looking for. My people are already tracking him down and investigating."

"Really? If you have any new news, please let me know."

It's not that Elsa doesn't believe in Hannah and the others' ability to get things done, but if they really have a target, Elsa can take action personally to ensure that everything goes well.

Vivian looked around silently along the way, and Sophia couldn't help but sigh when she saw the destruction of the observation group's base.

"If only all magic could be used to benefit humanity..."

she thought.

At this time, Hannah had brought everyone to the core building area of ​​the regiment's base. The building here was in the middle of the base and the only area that was directly hit by the magic explosion but not completely destroyed. This was the headquarters of the Magician Corps.

The headquarters building was taller and wider than the surrounding buildings. Directly in front of it was a road connected to the flower garden and the pond. In the center stood a statue of a goddess that had been blown up. Now only half of its body was left lying on the ground. The white plaster had been burned by the magical flames and had changed color, and was no longer smooth.

The building was in a mess. Although the building as a whole was barely able to hold itself together, the interior decoration had already been damaged. There were shocking cracks everywhere on the walls, and there were traces of dragged blood on the ground, extending all the way forward.

In the direction of the atrium, behind a staircase there is a staircase extending underground. There are knights guarding on both sides of the entrance to the staircase. After Hannah talked with them for a few words, she took Elsa and others and walked directly in.

Entering the tunnel, Vivian and Sophia shuddered at the same time.

"All the lights here are broken, but it's okay, Renee's waiting for us up ahead."

Hannah said, using a small lighting magic device to provide a little light in the deep and cold tunnel.

"From here down is the area leading to the underground magic circle circuit. The source of the 'explosion' is there - be careful of falling debris here. These tunnels have become unstable after the explosion."

Hannah reminded.

And Elsa twitched her nose.

I always feel that the smell in the air is familiar... ?

Earth veins?

But it seems a little different.

……

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229. Three Magic Circles (4K6)

Elsa has almost figured out the structure here - this tunnel is actually a whole magic circle. If there is a bird's-eye view, the situation will be much clearer. These huge magic circles form a huge circular area, covering the entire base inside.

"This magic circle is used to communicate with the earth vein sealing array and transmit magic power... If we explore further down from our current location, we will probably touch the earth vein sealing array."

Hannah explained.

"The Earth Vein Sealing Array is the most important and fundamental of the three core arrays, and we are unable to enter and investigate."

As he spoke, the eyes of the crowd widened.

"It's right here—it's almost below the statue of the goddess in front of the resident building."

Hannah said - Under Hannah's leadership, several people came to an underground space composed of many narrow and low corridors. It was like a huge library, with bookshelves completely dividing the corridors.

When Elsa stood normally, her hair almost touched the top of her head. In such a place, the demon general naturally couldn't bring in the giant sword on his back - but it was obvious that this design was not to restrict the activities of people coming here, but to fit in with the magic circle here.

Renee and the others were waiting here. There were glowing magic devices on the ground. Unlike Elsa and Sophia, who had extraordinary perception, Vivian finally saw clearly at this time that the walls on both sides were engraved with dense magic runes - these runes were large and small, some square, some circular, and they were connected to each other through the patterns of the base array like chains, forming a huge system whose function was unknown.

Some of these runes were still emitting a faint light, while others had long since gone out. The magic circle below was also in a broken state, and the gathered magic power was quickly released - it seemed that these magic powers were originally used to provide power for the operation of the magic circle here, but now they have completely dissipated into the air.

There were traces of the explosion everywhere, but surprisingly, these "bookshelves" did not suffer any major damage. Although the magic circle had been extinguished, the most important parts still retained their functions - they actually withstood the impact of the magic explosion.

"Greetings, sir, and all the gentlemen."

Renee came up and greeted everyone one by one.

Hannah also introduced Aisha and Vivian, saying, "This is Lady Faris. This isn't the first time you've met, is it? And this is Lady Faris's friend, and also the daughter of Lady Trawins, Sister Vivian Trawins."

"Lady Faris?!"

Renee was surprised. The light here was not bright, and it was the first time she saw Elsa so close, so she didn't recognize her at first.

She quickly saluted Aisha with a standard knight's salute, her face showing excitement and excitement. Everyone in the investigation team also looked over here in surprise.

"Hello."

Elsa smiled, and Vivian, a little bolder than before, took the initiative to say hello.

"Nice to meet you... hello..."

After a brief introduction, the few people got straight to the point.

Renee said, "We've already obtained the draft of the magic circle from the Lord's Mansion and compared it one by one with the runes here. Many parts have indeed been tampered with, and some parts even have traces of Abyssal runes. However, we can't figure out the meaning of those runes..."

After all, the Magician Corps suffered severe damage this time, and many research materials are still buried in the ruins. The former leader was killed, and the acting leader Ryan took several elite members to the town of Weilin. Tricia, the writer of these runes, is also not here, and there are indeed few people left who can understand these runes.

What's more, there are abyss runes in it?

"These rune systems are truly complex... The person who carved them must be a great magician, right?"

Sophia expressed her sincere admiration. Even she, who was once called the "Witch of White Frost", felt the designer's amazing magical attainments when she saw these complex magic systems.

Vivian watched intently, while Elsa carefully controlled her magic power to dispel it so as not to cause secondary damage to everything here.

"You guessed right. These were actually left behind by the sage," said Buck, who had been silent the whole time. He seemed to understand the situation better. "It's said that when the sage came here, he spent three months surveying the terrain and veins, transforming them, and designing a magic array based on them. It's not an exaggeration to say that this city was built by the sage himself."

"Well, the sage designed three great magic circles. They are the most fundamental elements of this fortress. Without them, there would be no fortress. They are the foundation of this fortress. Besides these three magic circles, other core areas, such as the lord's mansion and the two large regiment bases, were all drafted by the sage and later constructed. These details are explained in the minutes left behind from that year. Renee and I specifically reviewed them when you were interrogating the Ash Witch."

Hannah added.

Elsa had unknowingly walked to the back of the team. She listened to the conversation between Sofia and Hannah, her eyes falling on the runes.

Gently, his fingertips brushed across the runes.

There was nothing special to the touch, but Elsa seemed to feel the weight of time - these were probably things left behind from forty or fifty years ago.

Decades... If it wasn't mentioned specifically, Aisha wouldn't have realized that Tricia was no longer from this era.

The Demon King War lasted ten years, and forty years have passed since it ended.

Tricia was a person of that era, a legend who stood on the same level as the deceased heroes and previous saints.

Elsa suddenly wondered what Tricia was like back then. The Tricia of those days, the Tricia before the Demon King's curse, the Tricia before she'd walked with the Saint and the Hero, and before she'd experienced such a life-or-death separation.

Tricia said that she used to like studying magic and traveled around the continent alone, looking for magical relics and legends. Elsa couldn't tell what Tricia looked like at that time from these obscure runes. These runes were just wax seals after the dust settled.

"Three great magic arrays?"

Sophia continued to ask, and Hannah responded.

"Yes, it refers to the three massive magic arrays carved by the sage himself, all within the fortress. They are all engraved on the bottom floor of this fortress. One is a ground vein sealing array, which prevents the ground veins from running wild and stagnating. At the same time, a complete magic power circulation and amplification array is built on the ground veins. Without it, many magic arrays will not be able to function."

Earth veins?

Elsa sniffed the air.

Could this be the source of that familiar smell? But Elsa felt something was wrong.

"The second is an aerial defense formation. It's said that the barrier is so strong that it can even withstand a full-strength attack from a hero. So far, it's only been broken three times. Once, by a hero himself, in the early days of its construction, to test the barrier's strength. The second time was during the Demon King War, when the War Demon General broke through it. The third time..."

Hannah glanced at Elsa hesitantly, then immediately looked away.

"Actually, there's a third formation, said to be the activation formation for the legendary magic 'Divine Revelation', but no one has ever seen it in person... It's the sage's last resort for the fortress. It will only activate when the fortress is completely overwhelmed. At the cost of draining the earth veins, it forcibly borrows the power of the Earth Mother Goddess to fight a desperate battle with the enemy. This magic is too costly, and the borrowed power cannot be moved. It can only be used within the formation area, so it won't be activated unless it's absolutely necessary."

It's true that even when the zombie and vampire attacks broke out a while ago, several core magic circles in the city were not affected at all, and the basic functions were still functioning. If Elsa hadn't smashed the air defense magic circle, Clarence would have had no chance of escaping the city directly from the air without breaking through the city wall.

But this is precisely why it becomes ironic - even though this fortress has such a solid defensive array, it is still unable to withstand the threat that erupts from within.

"If the earth veins are exhausted, doesn't that mean this area will become a dead place?"

"Yes, but there's nothing we can do about it—the Demon King War back then reached that point... Without the resolve to die together, it would be impossible to defeat the Demon King's army. I think General Shibern and his soldiers probably came here with that same resolve."

General Shibern, perhaps referring to Sir Shibern's father? Elsa had heard a little about him, and it seemed he was later assassinated by remnants of the Demon King's army.

Elsa was silent.

Although she lived in a peaceful era in her previous life and had no real sense of anything related to war, many things are not completely incomprehensible without experience. At least, many people have had things that they must protect at all costs, and at that time, their own lives became expendable.

With a faint sigh, Aisha looked at the silent rune and put down her hand.

"Then let me take a look at this. I've never seen these Abyssal Magic runes before, but I think they're connected to the runes that already existed here. The carver seems to have used these magic runes as a foundation to rewrite the magic circle. So the function of these Abyssal Runes is to cover and guide it. In other words, they've become the core of the magic circle. They're like a malignant tumor, occupying the magic power that should be used for the defense. That's why the defense of the base is so vulnerable and was easily destroyed in the explosion."

Sophia said.

"I need the original manuscript of the magic circle here so that I can better understand its structure, okay?"

"Of course, we're ready—Renee, bring the manuscript."

"it's here."

Renee came to Sofia with a few scrolls in her hands. Sofia thanked her and said, "I'll conduct the investigation here."

Hannah and Renee understood, nodded, and left with Elsa and Vivian - the knowledge of the abyss magic could not be peeped by others, this was a matter of principle.

"Renee and I will continue searching here to see if we can find some other clues."

Hannah said.

Elsa nodded, glanced in Sophia's direction, and suddenly asked, "Since the magic runes here have been tampered with, can we use the records of the magician group to find out who might have entered here?"

"We are investigating. Unfortunately, the magician in charge of this has disappeared..."

"disappeared?"

Elsa turned and looked at Hannah.

"No body found?"

"No."

Hannah naturally understood Elsa's suspicion. She shook her head and continued, "So I guess the magic circle here was probably targeted a long time ago, and the administrator was replaced with an undead puppet. Look, some of these tampered runes are already condensed with 'crystal dust', which means these abyssal runes have been operating for quite some time."

Magic crystal dust can be obtained directly through alchemy. It is also easy to appear on the surface of objects that maintain the flow of magic for a long time. It looks like rust. Elsa used lighting magic to explore it, and the azure part of the crystal dust was extremely obvious.

"Every year, the Magician Corps cleans up the crystal dust, so we can no longer tell when these 'extra' runes were inserted. However, judging by the cleaning traces, they must have been there for at least a year."

"It seems that this has been planned for a long time."

"Yeah... Before today, I couldn't imagine that everything we were so proud of was actually in tatters."

Hannah felt a little sad. She lived and grew up in Dammas City, and later joined the Knights Templar and was assigned to the Lord's Mansion. For such a long time, she had not noticed anything wrong at all - if Elsa had not been here, if the vampires' conspiracy had succeeded that day, what would have happened afterwards?

Just the thought of it gave Hannah a chill.

She is not a fool, and the people here are not fools either. Because so many things have happened recently, they are more grateful to Elsa.

"But please rest assured, Lady Faris. We will find the missing members of the Magician Corps as soon as possible. One failure will not defeat us. I believe that after this, we will stand up again and fill the loopholes in our management."

Hannah said seriously.

"Can I look around?"

Aisha asked, sniffing the faint familiar scent in the air.

Hannah hesitated for only a moment before nodding, "Lady Faris, please feel free to do as you please."

If it was someone else who said this instead of Elsa, Hannah would definitely not agree.

"Vivian, come with me."

Aisha took Vivian's hand and left in one direction.

"Did Elsa discover something?"

Vivian asked, looking at Elsa and her hand. The lights around her dimmed, and this feeling reminded her of the memory of the first time she and Elsa got close in the underground palace.

and many more……

Thinking back on it now, Elsa's words at that time seemed a little unusual.