"Every Devil Master we were able to contact refused our proposal."
"As for the demons, while some Lords were tempted, they themselves are inherently unstable factors. The risks of cooperating with them are too great; we should not place any real hopes on them..."
"The gods' side is rather inexplicable."
"Among them, the Goddess of Magic's stance is extremely ambiguous. She neither rejected our proposal nor accepted it, as though she were plotting something..."
"And..."
As he listened to the intelligence reports delivered by one Grand Arcanist after another, Iolam's face did not darken because of the dismal results.
Because he had cast Divination Magic, he had already roughly guessed the outcome in advance...
At the same time.
Throughout the Kingdom of Netheril, with the war underway, all manner of grim reports were continuously reaching his hands.
By this point.
In the course of fighting those unknown creatures.
Grand Arcanists had already been confirmed dead on the front lines...
According to analysis, the two sides were completely locked in a relationship of countering and being countered!
The magic and magic equipment that Arcanists took such pride in had nearly ninety percent of their effects negated when used against the enemy!
These circumstances.
Immediately made Iolam understand even more deeply that the situation was spiraling completely out of control...
The entire kingdom was slowly collapsing like a rotting ancient tree...
Before long.
The scene he had personally witnessed while casting Divination Magic—countless Floating Cities plunging to the earth one after another like meteors—would very likely become reality!
And once matters reached that point, even if the kingdom won the final war, it would not be much different from losing...
Its foundations would be devastated, with eight or nine parts out of ten gone...
Therefore.
Iolam could not help falling into prolonged