Chapter 193: Non-magic nulcear (1/2)

The image in Markus ball was slightly unstable. With the fog on which Markus displayed, his memories continued to sway on the little wind that could enter the building, making the image a little distorted.

But it was all in terms of convenience. For the sake of observing the scale of the disaster, this quality was more than sufficient.

”T minus fifteen!” A voice came from the steamy orb. It was the old and common military code. 'Normally, they would need to add units in front of it was about anything but seconds,' Layn thought, observing every last detail that the picture showed.

For a few more seconds, nothing happened. The city in the distance stood magnificently. Even for Layn, destroying it completely would take not only quite a lot of strenght but even more time and effort in preparation.

After all, while magic appeared to be nearly omnipotent, the spells still had to be fueled with mana.

From the vantage point of the observer, one couldn't see the exact details of the city. If not informed prior, Layn would quite easily assume that this was the city... but before the first disaster.

”Now that I think of it, I don't think I ever heard what was the first disaster,” Layn suddenly noticed, talking up to Markus.

”Yeah,” the former saint replied.

”Ten, nine,” the voice in the orb started to count down.

”Because it was all a hoax, a sham to make all the inhabitants leave,” Markus added after a moment.

'I wonder how much did the people have to tell about this,' Layn wondered before reining his attention back towards the picture.

”Six, five,” the counting continued, proving that whatever was about to transpire was all a planned thing, not some natural and unpredictable disaster.

Something that was set by humans up, as such, capable of being replicated.

'For them to go for such great lengths,' Layn thought, staring keenly into the memory orb. 'Its effects really would have to be so insane that it would be actually hard to imagine,' he added in his thoughts, squinting his eyes once the count got closer to finishing.

”Three...”

”Two...

”One...”

While only Markus knew what to expect, and only Layn had a rough idea of what could potentially happen, everyone watched the image in the orb with bated breath. While by itself, the memory appeared nearly as just a still image, the countdown made everyone feel excited about what was about to happen.

And then it did.

Out of nowhere, at speed greater than a human eye could register, a massive ball of flames appeared in the city.

Both Markus and Layn, along with literally anyone who ever got above the level of fighting cooks in their grandparent's farms, had their senses enhanced with magic. That's why both the image recorded and what Layn actually saw slightly varied from what a common folk would experience.

”The image is dimmed,” Markus muttered as the ball of fire appearing to the size of around a thousand camps of theirs started to rise in the air.

'It isn't over yet?' Layn thought, watching how the originally perfectly circular ball of abyssal flames started to elongate and dim out a little as the atmosphere rushed in to fight against the fiery anomaly.

But that was happening all above the ground. On the floor level, the true form of the disaster was finally unveiled.

At first came the shockwave. Everything in diameter roughly five times the fireball's simply flattened. It didn't matter that Manterau, as one of the recently settled cities, was mostly constructed from concrete and magic-reinforced stone. In the face of the overwhelming might like that, the concrete would simply sizzle away.