Information Warfare and Fortress Construction

Clark turned his gaze toward Dionysius Spencer, dozens of kilometers away.

"How did the fate confrontation turn out?"

Dionysius Spencer floated high in the air. Across the surface of his silver-blue starlight robe, the constellation-like points of light that had once drifted slowly now showed subtle disturbances.

Before him, along the edges of the monitoring light screen, streams of data would suddenly break apart, warp, or leap without warning into erroneous symbols.

At Clark's question, the wizard skilled in fate revealed a bitter smile.

He made a helpless spreading-his-hands gesture.

At the same time, a detailed mental message came through their connection:

"We'd originally seized the high ground."

Dionysius's mental fluctuations carried clear exhaustion and unwillingness.

"This time, Noren Workshop mobilized all one hundred and seventy Level 7 wizards specializing in the Fate School. Together with three large-scale fate-anchoring arrays, we began weaving an 'advantageous future' three hours before the battle. According to the calculations, it should have raised our overall chance of victory by at least thirty-seven percent."

Clark remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"But the other side... those lunatics from the Chaos Cult and the Tower of Silence." Disgust seeped through Dionysius's emotional fluctuations. "They never intended to fight us for control of the Fate Lines. Once they realized they couldn't seize them, they directly launched a large-scale fate-contamination ritual."

"Contamination?" Clark's consciousness paused slightly.

"Yes, contamination. They used most of the souls of at least three Level 7 Wizards as fuel, forcibly injecting poisons of 'chaos,' 'disorder,' and 'anti-logic' into the river of fate in this region. Now, every Fate Line in this abandoned plane has become a tangled ball of yarn."

Dionysius sighed.

"Destruction is always easier than construction. They can't use the power of fate themselves, but they've made it impossible for us