"Did you run into anyone on your way here just now?"
Hyperion immediately grabbed the Poet of Great Love's forearm, asking with concern.
"I reached the entrance teleportation hall without a hitch, and then I ran into the warden. But before we even met, she was already heavily injured. So I called medical services for her and had her sent back to the Base Level."
The Poet of Great Love recounted what had happened to her after they parted ways earlier.
"Phew, that's a relief, that's good."
Hyperion breathed a sigh of relief.
Come to think of it, how could a Tier 1 Poet of Great Love possibly harm this level's warden? It was clearly just a coincidence.
With Lanqi's arrival, the group gathered in the Level B5 teleportation hall turned their attention to business. Watching the crimson glow on their wristbands, they brought up the prisoner information for this floor.
The name "Pranay" was nowhere to be found on the roster. However, there was a prisoner named "Sinora," followed by warnings and markers no less alarming than the ones Antanas had previously had beside hers.
"So the great demon on this level is Sinora the Spellbreaker. That means Pranay of Truth is on Level B6," Lanqi said to Antanas after confirming the details.
"Now I understand why the Protos Empire locked Sinora away on this level," Antanas remarked with a nod.
"Do you know Sinora the Spellbreaker well?" Lanqi asked.
As a member of the anti-war faction, the Ice Snow Witch was not particularly close to either Sinora the Spellbreaker or Pranay of Truth. Her intel on them was fairly limited, and neither of the two great demons had been part of the Church of the Goddess of Fate's rescue targets in the first place.
Antanas, on the other hand, being part of the conservative faction of the demon race alongside them, was naturally much more familiar with both.
"Of course. Sinora's innate magic is quite peculiar. Once she sees a spell just once, she can begin reverse-calculating it. The moment she succeeds, she can completely unravel that spell the instant she sees it cast again. Because of this, mages weaker than her stand virtually no chance. Once they exhaust their repertoire of spells, they're essentially crippled. The longer the battle drags on, the more hopeless it becomes."
Antanas shook her head. One could tell from her bitter expression that every past encounter had left her completely helpless against Sinora.
"Aside from Epic-tier spells, which Sinora can't reverse-calculate easily, and Sacred-tier spells, which pose a bit of a challenge to unravel, practically every other spell ceases to be a threat to her after she's seen it once," she added.
"No wonder the Protos Empire imprisoned her in the Hopeless War of Annihilation," Lanqi murmured, realization dawning upon him.
Logically speaking, such a formidable and troublesome anti-mage great demon ought to have been exceedingly difficult to contain. Yet Level B5 of Herrom Prison happened to serve as a tailor-made cage for Sinora.
On this floor, Sinora the Spellbreaker was the current demon race's undisputed champion at crushing weaker opponents. In a one-on-one duel against any mage inferior to herself, defeat was an impossibility. Yet she was also a mage in her own right, which meant she would be thoroughly battered by the phantom Sinora summoned by the Great Demon Trial, the Hopeless War of Annihilation, rendering her completely incapable of stepping beyond her cell.
If Sinora the Spellbreaker ever broke out of her cell, she would be hunted down by an even stronger phantom.
Instead, the cell had become her rare haven of safety.
The most effective counters against Sinora the Spellbreaker were purely physical classes. Someone like Sigrid, for instance, was her natural nemesis.
Meanwhile, Warden Melissa, as a defense-oriented knight, had little reason to fear Sinora the Spellbreaker either. Or rather, if she were to face Sinora in the Hopeless War of Annihilation, all she needed to do was keep herself alive, and Sinora would quickly meet her end.
"Let me pose a hypothetical question. If you and Sinora the Spellbreaker teamed up to fight an Eighth Tier mage, could you win?"
Lanqi pondered for a moment before turning his gaze back to Antanas.
It was difficult for him to gauge Sinora the Spellbreaker's exact combat prowess, as the disparity in her performance against mages versus warriors was simply too vast.
Upon hearing this question, the two Domination priests looked profoundly moved. They knew full well that Lord Holy Son was constantly taking the bishop's interests into account, showing not the slightest hint of fear even when the enemy was the Bishop of Extinction.
"Roughly how strong is he?"
Antanas's expression grew considerably graver. She could roughly deduce that this "Eighth Tier mage" was the formidable enemy she would have to handle on the princess's behalf once she left Herrom Prison.
After all, the gap among Eighth Tiers was immense.
Back when the Demon Realm still existed, there were great demons who were hardly suited for combat, and there were those who were monstrously overpowered.
"...If he's in peak condition, Talia surviving ten minutes would already be considered an achievement," Lanqi said after some thought, assessing Askesan's strength.
Estimating by the Southern Continent's newer tier ranking system, Talia at strong Eighth Tier would probably sit around Level 82 to 83, whereas Askesan, possessing bishop-level strength, was likely at 87 or even 88.
"..."
Though Antanas had wanted to speak, on second thought, she found the description surprisingly vivid, allowing her to grasp the enemy's caliber with perfect clarity.
"Then we still can't win. That's absurdly powerful."
Antanas shook her head. Setting aside Ninth Tiers, such a human could probably only have been matched by the demon race's strongest generals from back in the day.
Those among them who had survived were mostly great demons whose talents leaned toward logistics. Antanas herself was slightly weaker than Talia. Sinora was roughly on par with Talia and possessed traits tailored to counter mages.
Yet the raw power gap between them and this hostile mage was obviously far too wide.
Antanas lacked the confidence to help Sinora endure even a single round of attacks long enough for Sinora to unravel the majority of his spells.
"What if we add Pranay of Truth?"
"Then it's worth a shot. If the three of us join forces, even Imperial Great Sage Isis would find it a headache."
To Antanas's knowledge, the strongest figure in the Protos Empire today was Isis, the wielder of the Original Slate - Light.
"Understood."
Lanqi nodded, getting a clear picture of things.
He wasn't sure how much Askesan would be able to recover in time for the bishop election three days from now.
Even so, it was best to plan around him being at full strength.
Lanqi would afford this opponent the highest degree of respect.
"..."
Hyperion stood beside them with her brows tightly knit. An ominous foreboding welled up inside her, yet it was inconvenient to question Lanqi in front of the two Domination priests.
She could tell Lanqi was seriously analyzing combat power. Back at Ikerite Academy, everyone in the School of Alchemy had loved analyzing combat power as well.
On top of that, Lanqi had brought up a hypothetical enemy as a benchmark.
Hyperion wasn't entirely sure whether this "Eighth Tier mage" Lanqi mentioned was a real person.
Soon, however, Hyperion put her suspicions to rest. Lanqi was a prominent figure within the Protos Empire and an upholder of order; he wouldn't deliberately overturn the table in Herrom, the Imperial Capital, on the day of the bishop election to cause a massive uproar.
His and her plan was simply to secure cooperation with the three demons, complete the transaction with the Domination branch so that neither side owed the other, and then head back to the Kingdom of Asethelan. There was no reason to embroil themselves entirely in the Resurrection Church's civil war.
After all, Lanqi merely had some acquaintance with that woman named Side. He wouldn't truly stake his life for a terrifying figure like the Bishop of Domination.
Chapter 426