The Evil God Summoned by the Saintess-Chapter 81 - 79: Infiltrating the School Array?

In the next few days, Rose continued to have Hilia go fishing at the Forbidden Forest Lake, while he took advantage of her fishing time to keep working on the array for capturing the Sea Successor white whale.

Watching Rose embed the array into the ground beneath the Forbidden Forest Lake, Hilia was a bit worried that someone would discover or sabotage the array.

But Rose wasn’t worried at all.

"If the array I set up can be found and destroyed so easily, then this Evil God title of mine, I’ll just hand over to whoever finds it."

Rose had always acted pretty reliable, so Hilia chose to trust him.

After all, even Oston, who would occasionally go fishing with them, hadn’t noticed he was up to anything, let alone anyone else.

Hilia had worried more than once that Oston would find out, but in the end she noticed that once Oston entered fishing mode, he paid no attention to anything else—he just wanted to haul up fish.

Of course, Hilia never appeared with the magic puppet, either. Either Rose entered the Forbidden Forest ahead of time, or she started fishing and then entered the forest herself.

Under these circumstances, as long as Rose intentionally hid, it really was hard for others to notice.

While Hilia was covering for Rose’s array setup with her daily afternoon fishing sessions, the peaceful campus life was stirred up by a school broadcast.

[Dear faculty and students of Divine Magic Academy, this is the school radio. Principal Blake has sent out a directive: A major upheaval is coming in Huijin City, and for the next week, no faculty or students may leave campus without permission.]

This announcement was played three times, and immediately set the whole student body abuzz.

In the Star Spirit Network discussion groups, countless students speculated on what had happened.

Some with inside connections at the Holy Court had heard that a sect was summoning a monster at the level of an Evil God’s Follower, which excited them even more, and the news spread throughout the school.

The ivory tower students didn’t sense the danger— all they wanted to know was how far along the summoning was.

The day after the notice was released, Divine Magic Academy made another broadcast.

This time, it was a notification that the campus Protective Array was being activated.

A faintly glowing holy barrier rose from the seven tall towers scattered around the academy, gradually enveloping the entire school—almost like doming the whole grounds.

By day it didn’t feel like much, but at night it was dazzling, and countless students who’d never seen it before recorded the scene.

Hilia joined in, documenting the activation of the school’s Protective Array.

She’d already gotten interested in arrays after attacking a Tier Four Mage with someone else’s array at the Dusk Sect base.

Now, seeing the academy deploy its great defensive array, her curiosity was fully hooked.

"I wonder if the school’s array has a self-destruct function?"

"What are you thinking?"

Hilia made a funny face, "Habit, I guess— all the other arrays I’ve seen have a self-destruct rune, so I thought maybe the academy’s does too."

"Only someone with a few screws loose would design a Protective Array that’s both super sturdy and has a self-destruct rune. No normal person would do that."

"Heh, yeah, point taken."

Gazing at the holy radiance in the sky, Hilia looked at the tower closest to the dormitories.

"Is that the Pure Tower? Does the academy’s array depend on these seven towers?"

Rose nodded, "That’s right. The array isn’t set underground, but uses specific buildings for its structure. Its strength is in a whole different league than those crude sect arrays."

"I wonder if I could hack the school’s array..."

Hilia was itching to try.

"With your current level of spiritual power, the most you can do is get inside a tower—if you touch the exterior, it’ll immediately set off an alarm and bring every high-tier Mage in the school running."

"Fine," Hilia abandoned her research ambitions for now.

Rose said, "The academy’s array is way above your level right now, and it’s too complicated to figure out. No need to trouble yourself. However..."

He was also looking up at the holy barrier overhead.

"Even though this array’s been optimized, the weaknesses are still obvious. I can name at least ten ways to break it, and one of them is downright idiot-proof."

"Is it really that bad?" Hilia protested, but not very convincingly.

"It’s really that bad." Rose shook his head. "In your era, aside from magic puppet tech, everything else is pretty primitive. I wouldn’t be surprised if this array was dug up from some lost ancient ruin."

Hilia: "..."

She really wanted to defend the academy, but Rose knew so much, she couldn’t even try.

So she decided, "Idiot-proof breaking method? Can you teach me?"

Rose sized Hilia up and saw through her at a glance. Laughing, he said, "Sure, I can teach you. This kind of array, built with seven buildings, is called the Starlight Seven Towers. Each tower is a Starlight Node. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The ’idiot-proof’ method is to find the Rest Starlight among the seven, copy a rune you’ve prepared in advance into it, and it wrecks the node’s integrity— which collapses the whole array."

"Rest Starlight?"

"Yup. The Starlight Seven Towers are based on ancient creation myths— the seventh day is the day of rest, and it’s the weak point of the whole array. You can even take down the array from the outside..."

As Rose explained, the holy Protective Array in Hilia’s mind fell from divine to mundane.

She picked up a scroll. "Let me try drawing that breaking rune!"

Rose couldn’t help but laugh: "What, you want to sneakily break the school array when the white whale’s being summoned, and let the whale blow up the school?"

"Hehe, how could I want that? I’m just curious, you know. Is such a massive array really vulnerable to a simple rune?"

"Of course it is. Strong doesn’t mean perfect— nothing is flawless in this world. No matter how solid an array, there’ll always be an easy-to-open flaw. Good arrays just hide it better."

Like the sealing array that imprisoned him, for example.

Rose had long since figured out that sealing array’s weakness.

Inside, it was unbreakable, but outside? Fragile as glass. You didn’t even need a God— any human who went above and beyond could open it.

And the fact no one stumbled in and opened it all these years only goes to show the Twelve Main Gods’ arrangements were really solid.

He just wondered how they’d managed to fix this fatal flaw.

Rose decided to investigate thoroughly once he got out.

Time slipped by as he guided Hilia in drawing the ’idiot-proof’ breaking runes for arrays.

Soon, it was the day the Sea Successor white whale would descend.

On this day, the sky above both Huijin City and its outskirts changed in terrifying ways— the sky and sun vanished, replaced by a bizarre, watery surface, as if looking up from under the sea.

Sunlight struggled down through this watery ceiling, sending a feeble ray to the earth so people could still see their surroundings.

Today, Divine Magic Academy announced all classes were canceled, and everyone was to stay put in the dorms or teaching buildings, no leaving allowed.

Countless students were uneasy— it was their first time seeing something so eerie, and their fear mixed with curiosity and excitement.

As for Hilia, who knew exactly what was going on, she’d already arrived outside the Forbidden Forest Lake.