Chapter 829: Chapter 554: War is Approaching, World Destruction Forbidden Spell

"Know yourself and know your enemy?" Mage Delin chewed on the phrase before speaking. "That is wonderfully put. Did some military strategist from history say it?"

Raylo let out a laugh and hastily brushed it off. "I read it in a book a long time ago. I can’t remember the source."

Mage Delin pondered for a moment, seemingly savoring the words, before finally replying. "Judging by the time, Fernando should be back by tomorrow morning at the latest," he said, glancing at the sky. "Once his intelligence arrives, we can convene the supreme war council to finalize the ambush location and battle plan."

The two chatted by the window a while longer, discussing the details of their troop deployment.

That night, inside his mansion, Marquis Orlando hosted a small welcome banquet for Raylo and several high-ranking representatives from Mage City.

Inside the banquet hall, the Crystal chandeliers shone brilliantly while the melodious sound of a harp flowed through the air. However, the atmosphere was somewhat peculiar. Marquis Orlando and his subordinates sat as straight as arrows, terrified of saying the wrong thing, while the mages remained mostly silent, only exchanging the occasional whisper.

Raylo stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a glass of scarlet wine, entirely detached from the stiff socializing. His gaze pierced through the courtyard, landing on the ink-black sea in the distance. This calm before the storm certainly had a sense of ceremony to it.

Mage Delin walked over at some point, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

"The Marquis is a smart man," Mage Delin remarked plainly.

Raylo swirled his wine, the scarlet liquid leaving streaks against the glass. "Only smart people can survive the storm for long."

The two said nothing more, quietly looking off into the distance. Beneath the seemingly peaceful banquet lay the extreme suppression of an approaching storm. They both knew that this fine wine and music were merely the final appetizer offered up to the incoming bloody tempest.

The next morning.

Inside the main hall of the Marquis’s Mansion’s central keep, all the servants had long since been dismissed. A massive sandbox sat in the center, accurately simulating the thousands of kilometers of coastline and sea around Baisha Port. Raylo and Mage Delin leaned over it.

"If I were the fleet commander, I would choose this route. The water is deep, and it avoids most of the hidden reefs," Raylo said, his finger tracing an arc across the sand. "But it’s too close to the shore here, making it easy to get attacked."

Mage Delin frowned, pointing to another patch of sea. "Here is safer. For a massive fleet, safety is always the top priority."

Just as the two were debating, a violent gale suddenly blew past the window. Following the wind, with a loud THUD, a figure tumbled out from within the gust head over heels, landing in a miserable heap!

The newcomer wore a green Magic Robe covered in seaweed and salt stains, his hair as withered and yellow as seaside thatch.

"Fernando!" Mage Delin immediately rushed forward to support him.

Raylo cast his gaze over. This was the reconnaissance mage Delin had sent out—the Catastrophe Level Mage known as the "Transformer," Fernando Mage.

"How is it?" Mage Delin asked in a deep voice, a hint of tension in his tone.

Fernando caught his breath, his voice hoarse. "I turned into an Albatross and followed their vanguard for a day and a night. In order to get close to the core, I then turned into a barnacle and clung to the bottom of the flagship."

His account was plain, but Raylo could imagine the extreme danger involved.

"The scale of the fleet..." Fernando held up four fingers. "There are over four hundred combat vessels."

Mage Delin’s pupils shrank slightly.

"There are over eight hundred troop transports. At a rough estimate, the total military force is no less than three hundred thousand," Fernando added.

Raylo’s heart also sank. This scale was even larger than he had anticipated. The Light Holy See had truly gone all in this time.

"And these are just the conventional forces," Fernando Mage continued. "I sensed the auras of at least seven... Catastrophe Level entities."

Seven!

Good heavens, the Light Holy See was really flipping the table!

Mage City had only sent so many people because they had Foreknowledge of the enemy’s situation and made their arrangements accordingly! Yet the Light Holy See had directly deployed such a terrifyingly powerful force; they were absolutely determined to settle everything in a single battle!

It was foreseeable that the Light Holy See’s expeditionary force was facing fierce resistance from the Dragon Realm Allied Army on the Yellow Mud River battlefield, and their progress was likely far from smooth.

Delin walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing silently out at the distant sea. After a moment, he finally turned around.

"Seven... Excellent." His voice was calm, yet it carried a Power that made even Raylo’s heart palpitate. "If the number was any smaller, how could it highlight our determination to expel the Light Holy See? Seven Catastrophe Levels and an army of three hundred thousand—that’s just enough to gather a table of ’sacrifices’ for our millennium grand ceremony."

He strode back to the sandbox and swept away all the markers on it with one hand. His finger landed heavily on a cliff extending into the sea, thirty kilometers west of Baisha Port.

"Here, Cliff Horn." He raised his head, staring at Raylo with burning eyes. "Your prophecy has pointed out the enemy for us. Now, allow me to choose a graveyard for them."

He didn’t give Raylo a chance to speak, rapidly announcing his plan. "Gather all the mages and construct the Star-Attracting Array right here!

"I, along with my colleagues from the city—a total of ten Catastrophe Mages—will personally act as the core eyes to preside over the Array!

"All one hundred and thirty-seven Domains will enter the Array to serve as secondary nodes!

"Five hundred Grand Mages and three thousand High Tier Mages will be distributed along the perimeter to act as Magic Power sources, providing Magic Power support!"

Mage Delin’s voice echoed through the hall. "What we are going to do is not use a Forbidden Spell to bombard the fleet. That would be too slow, too wasteful, and it wouldn’t kill them all."

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