Magic Monopoly: Reborn as the Sole Magic Tower Master-Chapter 244: Episode

The moment Ghost Corps cleared the catastrophe and returned to base, an incident broke out.

Without any prior notice, the Lion Fleet appeared off the coast of Mexico, leading an enormous monster called a Shelter. They were right near Yucatán, where the Ghost Corps’ base was located.

It was practically a declaration of war. Ghost Corps had no time to recover before they scrambled to respond, and soon hunters from both sides were locked in a massive battle.

“Kill everything that moves!”

“Don’t let a single one escape!”

A war between Ghost Corps and the Lion Fleet.

They were both world guilds, but because of the nature of the otherworldly ruins they controlled, their combat styles were completely different.

The Lion Fleet’s hunters wielded a unique ability called “Carapace Form,” allowing them to transform parts of their bodies into crustacean- or shellfish-like armor and weapons. The exact style and application of this power varied wildly from one hunter to the next.

After undergoing brutal training under Sham, the Lion Fleet had arrived with a perfectly structured formation. The front-line hunters drove their carapaced arms into the ground like shields as they advanced, while the fire-support hunters behind them unleashed water cannons from their transformed arms—blasts powerful enough to pulverize a concrete building with ease.

Beyond the water cannons, there were hunters who whipped mana-formed tentacles like whips, and others whose bodies sprouted spikes. Though they all shared the same Carapace Form ability, each one displayed a wildly different style. Yet all of them moved as a single unit under strict command.

By contrast, Ghost Corps hunters were not bound by any rigid formation. They scattered in all directions, deliberately creating chaos and fighting freely.

Their ability was “Ghost Form.” They could turn parts of their bodies incorporeal and, for a brief time, escape all physical constraints. Instead of mana, Ghost Form users could wield a special power called “Soul Aura.”

If ordinary mana was positive, then Soul Aura was negative; it burned away any mana it touched. While harmless to ordinary people, it was lethal to players.

Ghost Corps’ strategy was to concentrate Soul Aura on a single point to shatter the Lion Fleet’s formation, then drag the fight into a chaotic melee.

Those trying to break through and those trying to hold the line—both sides fought with murderous ferocity.

However, Ghost Corps had just returned from dealing with a major catastrophe and were already exhausted. It was obvious that if the battle dragged on, they would be at a disadvantage. Knowing this, they went in hard from the very start, while the Lion Fleet, who had initiated the war, focused on defense, trying to slowly lock in their advantage.

A deep, continuous rumbling shook the earth, culminating in a deafening explosion.

“Scatter!”

A presence appeared that flipped the tide of battle in an instant.

When the conch-monster Shelter swung its massive arm, Ghost Corps hunters were sent flying without any chance to resist. Each strike reshaped the terrain around it.

“H-how is it that big?”

“Don’t be scared! Focus fire on that thing!”

Ghost Corps hunters poured Soul Aura at it in the form of bullets and arrows, but Shelter didn’t even flinch. Its mana reserves were as massive as its body; even when a huge amount of its mana was burned away, it kept moving as if nothing had happened.

“Fire!”

Hunters of the Lion Fleet, riding atop the living, breathing heavy assault vehicle, unleashed their firepower.

From the monster’s shell, water cannons and device fire rained down. Ghost Corps hunters of official ranks 5 and 4, who couldn’t maintain Ghost Form for long, were helplessly caught in the barrage. Even rank-3 ace hunters were barely managing to dodge.

“Good! We’ll punch straight through to their heart!”

It seemed like nothing could stop the charge of the colossal beast.

Right then—

“...What the hell is that?”

The sky filled with gray ghosts.

These mysterious gray projectiles, with only their eye sockets hollowed out, drifted through the air on strange trajectories before suddenly changing direction and slamming into Shelter.

The moment the ghosts touched Shelter’s body, steam erupted as if water had been poured onto a red-hot pan. The monster writhed in agony.

“Aaaaah!”

“What’s wrong with this thing?”

The hunters riding on its shell were either thrown off by its thrashing or forced to cling desperately to any protrusion they could grab.

“Stop. Intruders.”

At the voice from above, the hunters looked up.

A girl in an ash-gray dress was floating in midair. Swarming around her were a grotesque number of the same gray ghosts that had just struck Shelter.

Someone recognized her and shouted.

“G-Spirit King!”

Official rank-2 “Spirit King,” Marie Gold.

When she stretched out her arm, countless ghosts whirled and shot forward. These gray projectiles were the ultimate concentrated form of Soul Aura.

Lion Fleet hunters responded by raising carapaced shields or firing water cannons.

The result was shocking.

However, the water cannons that touched the ghosts vanished in a hiss of steam without leaving a trace, doing nothing to slow their advance.

The shields were useless as well.

The ghosts passed straight through the carapaced barriers and struck the bodies behind them. Smoke rose from the hunters’ skin as their eyes rolled back, and they either collapsed unconscious or hung limp in the middle of the battlefield.

A power that instantly evaporates all mana on contact.

Any player with smaller mana reserves than the Soul Aura attack was potent would be instantly neutralized. Their mana completely drained, they would be unable to lift a finger for nearly a week. In severe cases, the resulting shock could even be fatal.

And Marie was unleashing Soul Aura as if she didn’t care in the slightest if they died.

“Hunting devices won’t work! Use regular rifles, not mana weapons!”

“Target the caster!”

Some hunters pulled out conventional rifles and other old-fashioned firearms they had prepared for fighting Ghost Corps and opened fire, but the bullets passed straight through Marie’s body.

She was in Ghost Form.

“...How are we supposed to beat something like this?”

Mana attacks were burned away, and physical attacks passed right through.

With the arrival of an official grade-2 hunter wielding what was effectively an invincible power, the tide of battle turned. Even the massive Shelter, after taking a few hits, seemed to lose its nerve and didn’t dare charge at Marie.

“You have not changed, Spirit King.”

Then, a new figure appeared on the Lion Fleet’s side.

A white-haired woman in uniform emerged from beneath Shelter’s bulk. Marie’s expression hardened.

“...Sham!”

“I never imagined we would meet on the battlefield like this.”

“Why did you betray us?”

At Marie’s question, Sham smiled in a way that revealed nothing.

“Because it had to be done.”

That was all she said before lowering her stance. Just like Shelter, her back carapaced over, forming a conch shell.

“Shaaaam!” Marie screamed in rage and flung out her arms, sending a torrent of gray ghosts down.

At the same time, six jets of water blasted out from inside Sham’s conch.

Where the ghosts and water met, the ghosts shrank and shrank until they vanished completely.

“When you are up against a Soul Aura user, there is no clever strategy. It is nothing but a straightforward contest of strength.”

If Soul Aura was negative, then mana was positive. You had to pour on enough firepower until the two forces collided, hit zero, and annihilated each other.

“So I will fight you with everything I have.”

Sham crouched even lower. The horned conch shell on her back began to swell at a terrifying rate, growing so massive that even Sham seemed to struggle under its weight. Soon the shell touched the ground, and still it kept expanding.

It was like a grotesque form of replication. A new shell budded from the side of the first, and another from that one, multiplying exponentially. The number of conch turrets pointing toward the sky quickly surpassed seventy.

Water cannons fired from every single barrel. Marie refused to back down and sent her ghosts to meet them.

The ghosts pushed forward, blocking the water cannons, but their size steadily shrank until they winked out, and the blasts continued on toward Marie.

“Urgh!”

Marie banked hard in the air, dodging the water cannons.

“You are very tired, Marie,” Sham murmured.

In the end, Marie gave up on the power struggle and focused solely on evasive maneuvers. Sham stopped the water cannons and shifted her attack.

This time, mana-formed tentacles rose from within the horned conch. Hundreds of octopus-like tentacles, lined with suckers, erupted from Sham, and the hunters shuddered at the grotesque sight.

The tentacles lashed up into the sky, whipping around like gigantic whips.

Marie didn’t even dare think of counterattacking; she poured everything into high-speed flight, desperately trying to evade them. In the most dangerous moments, she formed ghosts in her hands and fired them, but all they managed to do was punch large holes in a few tentacles.

“At this rate, she’s in danger!”

“Protect the boss!”

Ghost Corps hunters rushed in.

“Do not let them interfere with the Admiral!”

“Take them all out!”

Hunters from both factions were about to clash once more when—

Fireworks exploded in the sky.

Flames and blasts suddenly blossomed in midair. Marie instinctively pulled back, and the tentacles chasing her recoiled from the fire.

“What the hell?”

“Someone’s there!”

Everyone’s eyes turned upward. Between Marie and Sham’s tentacles, a hunter with blue mana wings spread wide was hovering in place.

“All right, that’s enough.”

It was none other than the man poised to lead the “Sixth World Guild”—Tower Master Kim Yusin.

“What are you doing, fighting like this when you’re both world guilds? Instead of jumping straight to a brawl, how about you try talking first?”

Marie, panting in midair, looked at him.

“Kim Yusin...?”

“Do not interfere, Tower Master,” Sham’s face was set as she spoke. “I have no desire to fight you.”

“That goes for me too, Admiral.” Yusin glanced over at her. “But don’t you have something you should say to me first?”

“...” She slowly closed her eyes before answering. “I regret that things have come to this.”

Yusin scratched his right eyebrow with a complicated look.

“Sure. If your top priority is the lives of your niece and your subordinates, then it is what it is. But why the sudden attack on Ghost Corps?”

“That is not something you need to know. Step aside.”

“...Hmm.”

Yusin was not yet a world guild or anything close, so he had neither the right nor the justification to interfere in a war between two such factions. At best, he could try to mediate from this neutral position.

But where was the fun in that?

“Marie.”

He turned to the girl in the ash-gray dress, still gasping for breath.

“As soon as I got to Mexico, I worked my ass off. I saved your Ghost Corps from the cartel’s attack, and while I was at it, I even took down the drug lord Alvarez.”

“...Alvarez?”

Marie’s eyes widened.

“If I help you with this mess too, then promise me this: the entire Ghost Corps will grant me three requests, no questions asked.”

She fell silent.

Marie’s gaze dropped to the ground below, where countless subordinates lay groaning in pain.

She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to bear the sight, then lifted her head again to meet Yusin’s eyes.

“Fine,” she said at last. “Help us.”

“Okay. Deal.”

Yusin turned back to Sham.

“I’ve decided to side with them. Any objections?”

“None.”

Sham lowered her head as she answered. In her position, she had nothing to say.

“In that case, I’ll ask you one last thing before we get to work.”

Yusin stretched out his right arm.

A massive magic circle flared to life before his palm, radiating a blinding light.

“So, what’ll it be? A two-on-one? Or are you going to tuck your tail and run?”